Romeo vs Juliet
by Serephy
Summary: Sasuke tries a new experiment in his freshman year of Konoha Boarding School. Suddenly, there is a new girl stealing everyone's attention...Including Mr. Perfect, Uchiha Itachi. Crossdressing! Yaoi, ItaSasu. Some SasukexEveryone.
1. The Experiment

This is my second attempt at fanfiction at My first fic was great, but this one is a little bit more on the wacky side. Ehehehe….This idea came up to me during school. Don't ask. It's first person again. I just write better this way.

**Note: **I made the age gap between Sasuke and Itachi smaller. So Sasuke's a freshman and Itachi's a senior. That's four years…I think.

**Summary: **In his first year of Konoha Boarding School, Sasuke tries a new experiment. Suddenly, a new girl appears, stealing everyone's attention – including Mr. Perfect-and-Handsome. ItaSasu, some SasuEveryone Yaoi. OOC, if acting is OOC. A.U.

Enjoy!

**Chapter One: The Experiment**

When I first thought of this experiment, I thought I just went crazy. Then I thought that this would be a perfect addition to my life. Then I thought that if I don't try this out, I don't know how I'll survive Konoha Boarding School.

* * *

"Class, I'd like to introduce Kyoku Hikari," Kakashi, this weird teacher who has a mask on at all times announced. He was our homeroom teacher, the teacher we're supposed to go to if we have troubles or in the beginning of the day.

I smiled a little. I'm not too good about being out-going. I already saw a stupid looking blonde, a guy with sunglasses on in the classroom, a pink-haired girl, and a slutty blonde. This class can't get any more normal.

"Hikari-chan, will you please take a seat next to Uzumaki Naruto?" the stupid blonde I mentioned before rose his hand quickly. Great. Stuck with a boy who obviously is ecstatic about sitting next to someone like me.

I walked over and sat down next to him. Naruto was giving me this cheesy grin. "Hey, my name's Uzumaki Naruto. Hikari-chan, I can show you around if you'd like. After school, okay?" Naruto attempted at giving me a small wink. He failed, making it seem like there was something stuck in his eye.

"Okay." I stifled my laughter.

So. Here I am, the bored Uchiha Sasuke, disguised as a girl and planning on turning this school upside-down.

* * *

_**Teachers:**_

_Homeroom/English: Hatake Kakashi. He seems suspicious. As far as I know, he's a closet pervert. I'll just leave him alone for now._

_Gym: Maito Gai. He won't do anything. He's too STUPID to do anything. Anything other than torturing us with running ten miles per day._

_Biology: Yuuhi Kurenai. Poor woman. She's pregnant; I'd go easy on her…A lot of the male teachers pick on her sometimes. Mostly Asuma._

_Chemistry: Orochimaru. He is freaky. He is the freakiest person in the universe! He's a pervert in a very Michael Jackson way. He even looks like Michael Jackson! I'm keeping my distance._

_Math: Sarutobi Asuma. He's probably the most normal out of all of them, except he keeps bugging Kurenai-sensei. Smokes. Big fool._

_History: Jiraiya. Big pervert. I swear. He's a huge pervert. All I really know about him. I've got to keep my distance from him._

_Art: Kakashi's trying to do art. The best he can do is stick figures, and that's the best the current staff can do. But he's obviously the best at making stick figures, so he somehow got the time to do the job. _

_Spanish: Pein. People call him Pein, but every freshman is on the mission to find out what his real name is. People say it starts with an N. He's a little freaky, with all the piercing on his face. His hairs like Naruto but he's the exact opposite of Naruto._

_Drama: One can wonder how one teacher does three subjects. Kakashi's doing drama, too. Gai should seriously be the one doing drama. He's the drama king._

This school is sort of pathetic, sort of weird. Yet, I'm the kid who's dressing up as the opposite sex, so who am I to talk?

_**Students:**_

_Uzumaki Naruto. He's a real idiot. He's a failure at flirting. He's plain out annoying, and if you're going to explain something to him you have to use Pre-K words. Kids, the new meaning of idiot is Uzumaki Naruto._

_Haruno Sakura. A girl that really doesn't shut up. She's my chemistry partner, and she seriously thinks that that actually means something. She has pink hair, and claims that it's her natural hair color. I really don't plan on finding out._

_Yamanaka Ino. Oh great. She's the fan girl type, and right now I'm so lucky I'm disguised as a girl. She wants to get the scoop on everything, which explains why she wants to join the school newspaper. Oh, geez. _

_Inuzuka Kiba. He's secretly hiding a dog, I hear. I personally think he eats dog food. He isn't as idiotic as Naruto, but if there were a category of people, he'd be placed in the idiot group._

_Nara Shikamaru. Personally, I think he's an okay guy. Just doesn't have any motivation whatsoever. I think he's too lazy to even eat. This guy's skinnier than I am!_

_Akimichi Chouji. Damn, this guy's fat. He obviously hates being called fat, but I'll call him fat anyway. Fatso. Stop eating in class, especially during History when you're sitting behind me! Quit your constant fart bombs!_

_Aburame Shino. Uh, silent? Possibly blind?_

_Hyuuga Hinata. She's really shy, but she's dependable. If I were to give away my secret to someone, it'd be her. Though, if people pressure her too much she'll probably blurt everything she knows out. She has really good eyesight despite the fact that her eyes are whitish-purplish. _

There's more, but I'm too tired to write more. I'm just writing down anything I see, because I'm bored.

* * *

Naruto ran up to me after drama. "So, it's time for your grand tour, right?" He gave me the smile and attempted to wink again. He must have been practicing, because it actually was a successful wink. Not that I like him. He's a little…weird for my tastes.

"Yeah, sure," I smiled at him. I didn't want an idiot to be giving me the tour, but he seemed to know the place well enough. As long as I knew the area and didn't act like a lost puppy so that Orochimaru can pick me up, I'm fine.

Naruto led me outside, and I'm just thankful to God that he didn't take my waist. "You know this area, right?" I simply nodded. "Okay, here we go, then." He led me to the around the school. When we stopped at the cafeteria, I noted some older kids making a lot of noise.

Naruto saw me watching them. "They're just loud kids. Seniors. The popular ones." The blonde stared at them with a hint of disdain. "They're so annoying sometimes."

"Yeah." I spotted a tall guy with spiky blue hair and blue skin.

"…And odd. Great, here comes Mr. Perfect-and-Handsome," Naruto pulled me aside. I kept my watch on the group and I saw a guy with long black hair pulled back, eyelashes that should belong to a girl, and the mysterious lines that run from his eyebrows to his cheeks.

"Oh, shit," I muttered aloud, getting a little dizzy all of a sudden. That group of kids passed by us, not even giving us any recognition.

"Mr. Perfect-and-Handsome's name is Uchiha Itachi," Naruto explained to me as we walked out of the cafeteria. "I've never talked to him before, but all I know is that he gets perfect grades and has great athletic skills…and the handsome part." The blonde tried to look handsome as he ran a hand through his spiky hair. "Which I seriously don't get."

I laughed a little. He stared at me, confused.

* * *

It was two days after the first day of Konoha Boarding School, and I already thought I was going to be sick. I always passed that idiot of an older brother everyday. And yet he never recognized me. Maybe it's because I'm dressed up as a girl? Well, yeah.

Either I just can't stand being ignored, or I still hate him more than anything right now.

But right now, every single ounce of my attention was turned to the suddenly covered bulletin board. Great. So many things I can do, so little time. There were sign up sheets for all of the sports teams, ten million clubs and extra-curricular activities, events, and student council. I shrugged. I'm usually good at basketball mainly, and I'll sign up for student council just for the heck of it. I've got nothing to lose there, right?

"Kari!" Sakura ran up to me with her bag slung over her shoulder. She started calling me 'Kari' out of nowhere. Girls really are the oddest things. I still don't get them even if I'm actually trying to act like one now.

"Huh?" Act like a girl. Easy for you to say.

"You're signing up for student council! That's great! I'll vote for you! I don't really want to sign up myself, anyway, and recently only guys have been voted in student council," Sakura babbled on. Yeah. Only guys. Heh. About that.

"Yeah, but I doubt that anyone else will vote for me." Right now, Uchiha Sasuke is playing the innocent, coy, modest girl. But seriously. No one's going to vote for me.

"Don't worry; I'll be, like, your campaign manager or something! We'll think of something right, Kari?"

I nodded, trying to hold back my utter confusion.

"Okay, Kari, I've got to go right now! Bye-bye!" she gave me a quick hug and ran off really quickly. I think that she put too much syrup on her pancakes today. Sakura reappeared suddenly again, then added, "You have to give in your speech in three days, just a reminder!" She gave me a wave and disappeared behind the corner again.

Great. Speeches. Just great. I'm not so good at public speaking unless I'm a boy.

* * *

I went to the basketball tryouts the next day. None of the girls I knew where there, so I tried not to be too shy and not too out-going.

"Hey." I jerked up, hearing a firm female voice that was obviously directed at me. I looked up to see a girl with her hair pulled up into two buns with brown eyes staring right at me. "You're trying out for the team?"

"Yeah," I replied, standing up from the bleacher that I was sitting on.

"We're running first." I realized that I was the only one sitting down at the moment. Great. My reputation takes one step down the ladder.

We just jogged around the huge gym, taking our time so that we didn't get too tired too early. "My name's TenTen," the girl who was speaking to me before said. "I've never seen your face before. You new?"

I just nodded. If I try to talk while running, my voice will go down to it's lower (boyish) self.

"Hmm. I think I saw you with Uzumaki Naruto on the first day," TenTen gave me a gentle grin. At least there's a more tomboyish girl around that I can hang around with and be a little more comfortable with.

"Uh, what about it?" Okay, I talked. It wasn't that low of a voice was it?

TenTen nudged me sharply. "What, you like him?"

"No!" I said it too quickly, but it's the truth. Naruto's an idiot as far as I see him. He just doesn't know I think of him as one.

"Right," TenTen gave me a sly smile and I just gave her a disgusted face, meaning that he is gross and weird and why in the world would I ever like him. She nodded. I'm learning female body language all of a sudden. Weird. If I'm going to stay this way for the rest of the year, I'm going to be stuck acting like a girl for the rest of my life.

* * *

So it turns out I made the team. So it turns out that Naruto found out and is now ecstatic because he doesn't know any girl other than TenTen made the team. (Sakura and Ino are in cheerleading, because they're girly girls and really no one can stand them.)

"At least there's a new addition to our group that isn't shy or a girly-girl!" Naruto exclaimed very loudly when he caught me at breakfast. Hinata gave Naruto a small hurt look, and then turned away.

"Uh, right," I muttered, watching the group of popular kids in the corner of my eye. Sakura was staring at me curiously, following my line of vision.

"Oooooh," Sakura whispered, poking me with one of those sly smiles again. "You're watching Itachi-senpai, ne? He's so smart and hot and awesome! Isn't he?"

"No! He's a jerk, trust me," I blurted out. Damn. I'm supposed to be a girl. And girls fall for guys like…_him._ "Why would I even like him?"

"I've never seen you talking to him," Ino, the superficial blonde, speaks. "Geez, Hikari, you're such a liar. Stop trying to act cool and admit that you like him like every other girl in school."

"Shut up, blonde," I retorted.

"Yes! Cat fight!" Kiba and Naruto stared at the both of us intently. Sakura was just plain out perplexed. "Cat fight!"

"Make me you flat-chested freak!" Ino yelled back, standing up. I think we caught a little bit too much attention at the moment; I saw a lot of pairs of eyes staring at us intently, and some guys chanting 'cat fight'. The cafeteria was silent.

"At least I'm not as skinny as a stick!" I crossed my arms and stood up, too. Luckily, I was taller than her, so I think I made a little bit more of an appearance. "I bet you're just scared of being insulted! Well wake up, Little-Miss-I-Think-I'm-Perfect, because I don't care!"

"Oh yeah? You think you're all that don't you!" Ino yelled, though it seemed like she was struggling for the right words to find.

"No, I don't, so back off, bitch," I said, giving a nice slap to her face. I resisted punching. That's too boy-like. I just plopped back down to the chair watched for her reaction.

"Uh! No one slaps me!" Ino yelled, taking her hot chocolate and pouring it on my head.

And that hot chocolate was really, really _hot_. Naruto and Sakura had jaws touching the ground, as I clutched onto my head yelling threads of curses. It really burned. One of the guys from the popular table yelled something like 'Call a teacher' and ran over to me. I fainted not soon afterwards, but I saw the triumphant look on Ino's face, then a shocked one all of a sudden.

This made me just wonder. Why in the world was she shocked, anyway?

* * *

My first trip to the nurses' office. What, was this the fifth day of school? To the nurses office on the first Friday. I would've tried to beat that record if I didn't want to make a fool of myself on the first day.

Man, this office is so white. White. What an irritating color. It makes badly injured students think they're in heaven.

"Are you alright?" I sat up and saw a blue-haired woman with piercing that reminded me of Pein on her face. She had a nice paper flower in her hair. If there were an origami club, she'd be the supervisor. Then again, I think there is one.

But I just nodded to her question. I sat up and felt a very cold (soothing) paper towel on my forehead, which obviously took the most damage. I slowly took it off and felt the skin. Oh, I'm going to kill that Ino-bitch. The skin there was burned. And the water from the paper towel was spiking up my hair. Damn. If I'm right, the nurses' office is a little bit far from my room. Damn.

_Revenge!_

Girl grudges. Great.

"You sure? You're burned a little on your shoulders and neck, and a lot on your forehead." The blue health office nurse said.

"I noticed," I managed to mumble. I didn't bother sitting up because then my hair would really spike up and she would know that this person on the bed is definitely not a girl. As long as I lie down here, I'm completely fine. "Um, what's your name?"

"You're new here, huh?" she leaned over and took the wet paper towel off of my forehead and replaced it with an even damper one. Oh geez. "Just call me Konan." I felt a little bit more of my hair attempting to spike up.

Stupid spiky, porcupine-molested cockatoo hair.

Konan kept talking. "A lot of the girls in this school are like this, so don't worry about it. Just don't provoke them, and then they won't dunk hot chocolate on you. Oh, yeah, you've got a lot of chocolate stains on your shirt, so I got you a sweater. Is that okay?"

"…Do I have to pay for it?"

"No." She laughs.

"Good." Despite the fact that I'm basically a 'rich kid', I like to save money. "Uh…"

She kept talking again. "You really should thank that young man who brought you over here…I think he was Uchiha Itachi?"

I jerked upright. "Yeah, got to go now. Bye." I quickly threw the paper towel into the garbage and ran out of the nurse's office, and dashed to my room. I passed by Naruto and Sakura, but they didn't notice me, luckily.

"Oh, no." The keys to my room. Gone! What the hell? I heard footsteps coming. Damn. Bad days. This really isn't my day. I grabbed the hood and pulled it on; praying that the spiky hair didn't spike up too much that it'd be too noticeable.

Ino-bitch is back.

_Revenge!!!_

"What do you want now, Ino-bitch?" Screw not provoking her. Provoking her is fun.

Ino frowned at me and crossed her arms. "You're lucky you missed all of your classes today. We had a pop quiz already."

"…And you're telling me this, why?" _My forehead feels weird because of you!_

The blonde shrugged. "Sakura told me to. And the entire school's yelling at me, just because I dunked some hot chocolate on you."

"Hello? _Hot _chocolate. Quit being such a dumbass," I muttered, searching through my pockets again. No key. What the hell is wrong with this world? Now I'm stuck talking to Ino-bitch. Last thing anyone wants to do (especially me) is talk to her.

"Oh." She didn't look too surprised. "Whatever. I just don't get what's so special about you." Ino frowned again, leaning against the wall. Resist the temptation to slap her. "You do know that everyone in the school is suddenly talking about you."

Something unexpected. "Huh?" Screw keys. This is weird. "What do you mean?"

"Now you're acting innocent. How many personalities do you have in that skimpy body of yours?"

"Your body's skimpier than mine, if you wanted to know," I groaned. Not getting anywhere. "Why's everyone talking about me? I'm just the new kid who's trying to get by." It'd be really weird if they already knew that I'm actually a guy.

"I guess that's exactly why."

"I don't understand."

Ino stood up straight, and looked at me in the eye. She placed a hand on her hip and explained this to me. "New. You're _new._ Everyone here knows each other but you. Now everyone suddenly wants to get to know you, especially the guys."

"Why the guys?"

"Boys will be boys. Mata ne, flat-chested freak," Ino said, turning on her heel and walking off.

"…Bitch." I muttered, continuing my key search.

Ten minutes of looking for something. Dull and boring. Until… 

"Are you looking for these?" A hand with slender fingers held keys right in front of my face.

"Uh, thanks," I didn't look at the person's face. I took the keys and opened the door. Then I looked at the person's face.

Oh geez.

Fuck.

Lie, Sasuke, lie! "Um, who are you?" Who are you. Nice thing to say. I had my hand on the doorknob, ready to run in and shut the door and scream go away. Calm down. Resist the temptation to do so.

"Oh, you're new here, right?" He talks as if everyone already knows him. As if everyone in the world should know him. "You should introduce yourself first, you know." Damn. He's the guy (supposedly), shouldn't he introduce himself first? Then again, chivalry's dead.

"Kyoku Hikari," I mumbled. Pretend to like him. _Pretend. _"And you?" My hand tightened around the knob.

He leaned against the wall casually. "Uchiha Itachi."

"Well, uh, thanks again for giving me the keys." I can lie. I just don't like the way he's looking at me. Those eyes that I (used to) think were beautiful stared right at me. Like he knows something. Maybe he already recognizes me as Sasuke. My hair's totally spiking up right now and he might find out sooner or later if I don't get in my room and fix it. "Where'd you find them, anyway?"

Just had to ask.

"They fell out when you went to the nurse's office." Oh, right. He was there when the Ino incident happened.

"Well, thanks again, but I've really got to go…" I mumbled. "Um, see you later, I suppose." I ran into the room, still praying that he didn't notice my spiky hair. I grabbed some hair gel and started flattening it again.

* * *

_Yamanaka Ino. Bitch! I'll get my revenge on you!_

_Health Office Nurse – Konan. Nice woman. But she looks a bit like she's Pein's girlfriend. Looks can be deceiving, though._

_Uchiha Itachi. I hate you! I completely hate you! I swear you're stalking me! If you dare try and make me fall in love with you like every other girl in this school, it's not going to work you idiot! It's on Romeo. It's on. And I'm going to win._

* * *

"Kari-chan!"

"Hikari-chan!"

The first one was Sakura. The second one was Naruto. Sakura's the only one that calls me Kari. But lately Naruto's trying to get into the habit of calling me Kahiri. He just mixed up the syllables and he claims that it sounds cool. Kahiri's a weird name, in my opinion. Then again, it's just me.

The pink haired best friend wanna-be arrived before the blonde and blue eyes boy friend wanna-be.

"That was an awesome speech this morning," Naruto managed to say before Sakura. "I think you'll win. I really didn't know you were running…Sorry I'm running against you." Naruto's probably the type of guy who wants to be noticed a lot. So that's why he was running, as far as I know. He's a pretty good motivational speaker. He kept saying stuff like wanting to make the school year a lot more fun for everyone (even though that's what they all say), he's going to do everything in his power (which happens to be very little since the seniors always get what they want) to make this year something different than the rest (but that's a bit like the first one, right? I'm making this year something different by just being a girl), and he added in that he was going to try and make the food at the cafeteria better (which really caught everyone's attention).

My speech was really just like everyone else.

But I swear a lot of the boys weren't staring at my face when I stood on the stage.

"But you know, there's already a student council president," Sakura exclaimed, shoving Naruto aside. I find the fact that they're fighting over my attention very…uhm…weird. "I'm so jealous of you!"

"What? What? Huh? Who?" Naruto said, his face filled with shock. Maybe more jealousy than shock.

"None other than-" the pink haired girl started, then she stopped straight, her mouth in a wide 'o' as she leaned to the right to get a better view of something behind me.

"What is it?" I asked a little nervously. I felt someone looming over me like a tower, then Sakura silently squealing.

"I never knew a girl like you would really have the guts to run for student council already."

Oh.

Shit.

_Him. _

I turned around quickly, hiding the anger in my face with a coy look. I pulled it off somewhat…I think. _He _fell for it pretty well.

A lot of people stopped what they were doing and stuck around to watch. So this was what Ino meant by 'new'. What they're probably thinking is _OMG; it's the new girl who I don't know at all and Mr. Perfect-And-Handsome!_ It was all written clearly on their faces.

"Nice speech. Better than…many other ones." I saw his eyes flicker to Naruto, then back. So it was true, Naruto's speech did have a little…a lot of grammar mistakes. Still, he was indirectly picking on Naruto. Even though I don't really like the blonde that much yet, it's just a chance to pick on _him _for a while.

I took a small step forward, still having a timid smile on my face. "You know, you really do think you're perfect, do you?"

"…No comment," he muttered, keeping his gaze fixed on me.

"So since you're perfect you think you have the right to mess around other people's feelings?" Personally, this isn't the kind of fight that I'd usually fight. Now, it's a different story.

"…No comment," he repeated. Unfazed. Oh well.

"I'll give you a warning then," I smiled at him a fake smile. Anyone could see through that. Usually someone would run but this is Itachi I'm talking about. He stays rooted on the spot. Still unfazed.

No teachers around. Time for fazing.

I raised my hand and slapped in on his face. "That's my warning," I said, still smiling. "'Bye." I grabbed Naruto and Sakura's arm and strode off, holding my head pretty high. Maybe because I'm just singing a victory song in my head.

"Itachi-kun!"

Fan girls back there run to help him.

Boys are staring at me, thinking that I'm made.

I dare to look behind me for a split second, and I see a completely amused (but fazed) expression on Uchiha Itachi's face.

_Sasuke – 1_

_Itachi – 0_

Like I said, you bastard. It's on.

* * *

Yeah, very...weird. Wondering why Sasuke hates Itachi so much? Comes up a bit while up. Keep guessing; let your imagination fly...

Review please! Thanks for reading this totally pathetic writer's story… It was a pretty stupid idea so yeah…Don't ask about the title, either. The title's kind of freakish, but it goes well with the story.

Again, review please!


	2. Mr Perfect and Handsome

Thanks for reading it all so far! I'm just letting out a little weirdness at the moment…So, yeah, hope you enjoy this one, too!

Real action is coming up on later chapters!

**Chapter Two: Mr. Perfect and Handsome**

To be honest, I never thought of this experiment. A few teachers made the idea up, and suggested it to Tsunade and she accepted for no reason. And they chose me, out of all students, to be the surprise cross-dresser. They say that if I do a few things to my looks I can actually pass as a girl.

I only accepted because I didn't really have a reason to say no.

And now I think that this is the oddest and yet most fun thing I've ever really done in my life since I was seven.

* * *

"Kari-chan, you've got guts," Sakura whispered to me while we walked down the hall. "I don't think anyone has ever done that to him. I don't know whether to be surprised or to congratulate you…"

"Everyone's staring at you," Naruto muttered. "When they said new kids either get no attention or a lot, they're right…"

I stayed silent. The hand that connected with his skin was tingling for some reason. My heart was beating, either because I'm thrilled or because I'm feeling a huge pang of remorse.

* * *

_Uchiha Itachi. ? _

* * *

"The voting is now over. There's one representative from each year, and one president. And, finally, this year there's actually a two girls on the student council." Tsunade announced later on this afternoon. Sure. The other girl and I made history. "Now, the student council representative for the freshmen is Kyoku Hikari."

I didn't feel anything in particular at the moment. I was still thinking about the ruckus I caused with Itachi. But still, I won. The new girl won. It's surprising for me especially, but there was a roar of clapping in my ears as I stood up to go to the podium.

"Well, I just want to say thanks for voting for me and…I'll do my best!" I bowed a little, smiling on the outside and scowling on the inside. I can seriously act like someone like this? Shocker. Another roar of clapping. Mainly from the male body of the school.

When I sat down again, Naruto gave me a big grin.

"The student council representative for the sophomores is Hyuuga Neji," Tsunade said after the clapping died down.

Okay, new face. I stared at the long-haired boy as he walked up to the podium. He had the same eyes as Hinata, supposedly blind but eyesight better than a normal person.

"All I can say is that it was destiny that made me your representative."

Okay. Bastard. Weirdo. Complete weirdo. I saw Naruto and Sakura roll their eyes and shake their heads. There was a guy with bowl-cut black hair nod very slowly but had some sort of weird passion of something (jealousy) in his eyes. There was less clapping in the stands. So everyone knew he was a weirdo. Why'd he win then?

"The student council representative for the juniors is Temari," Tsunade announced again.

More new people. I really need to get to know my senpai. I only know the freshman and Itachi, which is kind of pathetic.

A girl stood up, with her blonde hair pulled back into four ponytails. She was pretty tall and (I have to admit) better looking than _some _other blondes. "Okay, thanks for voting me up, and I'm glad to be one of the first girls in the student council." She gave me a small wave before jumping off the stage.

Sure. Girl power. Right.

"And the representative for the senior year," Tsunade continued on after some of the guys stopped they're clapping. "Is Deidara."

Like I said unfamiliar senpai. She/He (I don't know yet) stood up and waved to his friends saying something about art and a bang. Then he walked up to the podium, this big smile on his face.

"Yeah, so thanks for voting me up, I'll make this school year a bang, yeah!" Some seniors from the audience yelled 'Art is a Bang!' "Yeah. Like a bang, yeah! Yeah!" Obviously those kids were his followers.

"And the president of the student council is Uchiha Itachi," Tsunade said. Pein pushed Deidara off the stage at the moment, and there was some fan-girly screams from the audience when that bastard stood up.

Oh, so that's what Sakura meant by how I was so lucky. I get to work with _him. _It's so obvious! Mr. Popular always gets up there…

He started talking about something but I didn't pay attention. What he says is the last thing that I really wanted to find out, anyway.

* * *

"Hikari-chan, right?" There came that girl with the two brown buns. She wore Chinese-style shirts a lot.

"Um…TenTen-senpai, what are you doing over here?" Yeah. Really. Sophomores never really come over to our area. "Is it about the team?"

"Actually, yes!" TenTen gave me a smile and a thumbs-up. "You made it. Anko-sensei's our coach, and she wanted me to tell all of the new girls that they made it in. So congrats! And…The next practice is tomorrow six o'clock in the gym."

I just nodded. No ecstasy there.

"Oh yeah," TenTen added in, stopping in her tracks. "Well, the boys practice after us, so you might want to leave a little early. Don't stick around…Usually they're very…You get what I mean, right?"

…_Maybe. _

"Thanks," I mumbled, picking up my bag.

"Congrats on winning student council!" TenTen yelled before disappearing down the hallway.

* * *

"Hey, Hikari-chan, right?" A familiar looking girl came up to me with a lot of pieces of paper under her arm. It took me a while to recognize her, but when I spotted the blonde hair pulled back into multiple small ponytails I remembered her as Temari.

"Yeah, it's me," I said, turning around. It was a weekend already, and nothing much had been going on except for the fact that everyone's been looking at me differently ever since I gave that idiot Uchiha Itachi a nice slap across his face.

"Kakashi-sensei told me that you're great at English," Temari said, giving me a smirk. "So I'm asking if you'd like to join the school newspaper. Unfortunately, the only role that's open is the advice column. You can do that if you want to." I stayed quiet for a second. "Oh, don't worry. It's anonymous."

"I'm okay with it, I'm just not sure if I'm the right kind of person you should be asking to write an advice column," I replied, chewing on my lower lip gently. Really, I'm not the kind of person anyone should be asking for that. "I mean…"

"Because you gave Uchiha Itachi the first slap he probably ever got in his life, you don't think you're qualified?" Temari smirked again.

I nodded. And Temari laughed.

"Don't worry about that! I think that our school needs a few more girls like that, anyway. Someone that can stand up against boys," the blonde said. I found out that she doesn't like guys who think that girls aren't worth their time (ahem, Shikamaru) later. "Okay, I'm going to give you the e-mails to the newspaper staff that are for the advice column to you, from now on." The blonde suddenly looked at her watch. "Oh, got to go…"

Okay. School newspaper. Advice column. No problem. I walked confidently down the hall, passing the full bulletin board with a large notice of the play _Romeo and Juliet. _

* * *

_Temari. She's an exchange student from Sand. She gets along well with a lot of people, except for guys, and especially Shikamaru, from what I hear. She has a weird sense of hairstyles but she's pretty nice when it comes down to it._

_TenTen. I haven't written about her when I could, so I'm writing about her now. She's a tomboyish girl a year older than me. I think she likes that weird guy Hyuuga Neji (who I'll bring back later). She's the captain of the baseball team. A very nice girl, but is pretty rough when she wants to be._

_Hyuuga Neji. I don't know much about him, but judging by first impressions, he's a destiny-freak so-called genius. Pretty popular with the girls. He's a year older than me, and he's related to Hyuuga Hinata somehow._

* * *

Chemistry class. If you don't remember, it was that freaky Orochimaru Michael-Jackson guy that teaches Chemistry. He keeps giving everyone the eye, especially me. He gave me detention during break just because I avoided eye contact when he asked me a question.

Why wouldn't you try to avoid eye contact with a weird guy like him, anyway? He's got real greasy hair, too…

The only good part about him is probably the colour of his eyes. Golden eyes…It's beautiful in a way, but the purple eyeliner ruins the image and makes everyone else focus on the grossness of everything else on his body.

And so, detention begins.

"Hikari, do you know why you're in trouble?" I was innocently sitting in my desk, and he was circling me like a vulture. I played with my fingers a bit. Focus on the figures. Not the fact that this weirdo's probably going to rape you soon.

"I'm in trouble because I refused to make eye contact with you?" I said uncertainly.

"Are you telling me or are you asking me?" Orochimaru said, beginning to circle me counterclockwise.

I nearly sighed, but I realized that he might be unreasonable and give me another day of detention, so I held my breath for a few seconds before answering. "I'm telling you that I'm in trouble because I refused to make eye contact with you." I said it firmly, just hoping that I won't get yelled at for adding in a rebellious tone.

"Tch, tch…" Orochimaru shook his head and turned around circling me clockwise. I closed my eyes when he stopped, feeling violated already even though he hasn't done anything to me. But when you're stuck in a room with Orochimaru, you feel violated immediately. "Don't be a bad girl, Hikari."

"…I don't understand," I managed to say. Act casual. Yeah right. Talk about mission impossible.

"Detention tomorrow, Hikari," Orochimaru said, beginning to move around me again. Thank the heavens. He didn't start raping me on the spot. He was moving around me counterclockwise again, his hands folded behind his back.

"But…What did I do, Orochimaru-sensei?" Sound like a compliant and confused girl, Sasuke. For once, the word 'girl' wasn't the operative word.

"…What happens in detention with me is strictly between you and me, is that understood?" That guy's voice was harsh all of a sudden, and my heart skipped a beat in a bad way. _Dude, he's going to RAPE me…And then find out that I'm really a guy, but still rape me anyway because he's Michael Jackson's twin brother. And I'm going to have to keep quiet about all of this because if this gets out, everyone's going to talk about it and he's going to find out and I'm going to be RAPED again…All I can do is plead to Tsunade, but how am I going to get out of this particular predicament???_

Orochimaru stopped again behind me, and I felt his hand run against my hair. Oh, just awesome, he's going through with this!

_I do not want to feel this feeling again!_

"S-Stop!" I cried out when his lips collided ruthlessly to my neck. He kept my hands pinned down on my desk and my legs were imprisoned under the desk. The lights are off, the shades are down, there aren't any windows on the doors, all of the rooms are sound-proof, and shit, why the hell are the classrooms in the school built so that someone can seriously get raped without anyone noticing?

Orochimaru shifted his position, holding down both of my hands with one and moving his own free hand down to my jeans. At least I'd decided not to go too far and wear a skirt for a while. I was safe for a moment, but…but _still!_

I felt like I _had_ to resist. And, as a natural impulse and by past experiences, I did resist. I pushed Orochimaru away from me as hard as I could. The Chemistry Sensei looked shocked, as if no one had struggled against him before. Well, welcome to my life. I jumped out of my desk and made a quick decision. Get the door, or try and beat Orochimaru up.

I decided for door. Call me a coward, but I don't feel like going up against an adult. Sure, I can fight against other teenagers, but not adults. They always find their way to get out of situations, and even though they claim that the blame always goes to them, the blame goes to us kids/preteens/teenagers, too.

I wrestled the door open, my hands shaking, and crashed into someone's chest. Orochimaru looked enraged as he bolted to the door and grabbed the mysterious person and me into the room. He stood at the door now, protecting it. The only good thing that came out of a random person coming in was that there was more than one witness.

Orochimaru hissed as he glared at us, but the random guy that was pulled in knocked him just took that moment during the Chemistry teacher's hissy fit to knock him out and save me from being raped.

"You okay?"

Oh, geez, why didn't I notice until now?

My Mystery Savior is Mr. Perfect and Handsome, a.k.a. Uchiha Itachi.

"Thanks," I simply said, still giving him a glare.

"I saved you from being raped and you glare at me and say thanks in a tone full of hate," Itachi smirked at me.

"What are you going to do about it? Rape me in turn?" I rebelled against his smirk. I already vowed to myself that I'd never let him be superior to me. And for a very good reason which I do not wish to share with anyone else in the universe at the moment.

Itachi's smirk faltered for just a second, but came back up. I triggered something deep down in his memories, just as I had meant to. "Look, Kyoku-kohai, you've really got to learn to respect your elders."

"Huh. But you've really got to learn to respect everything else but yourself," I retorted back. I stood up, brushing myself off. "I have to go now, so if you would excuse me…" I tried to slip past him until he just took a small step to the side and blocked my path on purpose. "What do you want to say now?" I demanded, impatient.

"Hn…" A long awkward silence inserted here. He stared at me hard. Maybe he recognized me as his younger brother, maybe he didn't. If there's someone's mind I can't read too well, it's his. "Nothing." Itachi stepped out of the way, picked up Orochimaru's limp body, inclined his hand backwards as a good-bye, and disappeared.

"…Whatever," I mumbled, standing there for a few moments.

The memories of seven years ago were slowly coming back to me again. Stuff that I don't want to remember.

* * *

"Hikari-chan, where were you?" Naruto ran up to me.

"Kari-chan, where were you?" Sakura ran up to me.

Exactly the same, except for one syllable. It just irritates me.

"Orochimaru-sensei called me back for detention," I said, giving them a timid smile. "It's really nothing…"

"It ended sooner than it usually does…" Naruto said. I started walking and the two of them followed me like lost and hungry puppies. "I should know. I get detention all the time."

"Don't act like you're proud of it!"

"Well, maybe I am!"

Naruto's probably thinking that I'm the type of girl who likes bad boys. That's a lie. Kids who do nothing but cause trouble are the last kind of people that I'd like. Other than my supposedly perfect brother, of course.

"Oh, yeah, Hikari-chan," Naruto added in. "We rounded up some of our senpai friends. They all want to meet you! TenTen-chan and Temari already know you, though."

The only good thing about this blonde as far as I currently know is that he basically knows everyone in the school. Not that he's popular. He's just the kind of person who isn't afraid to talk to everyone, even if that means ruining his reputation and making him look like a complete dork. Which is why he probably is one sometimes.

There was one kid around my age that I remember seeing in some classes there. That kid with maroon hair, eyeliner, no eyebrows, and a tattoo with the kanji 'love' on his forehead that he constantly gets yelled at for having. The only reason I've never approached him yet is because he has that aura to him that says as clear as a children's book, _Don't Approach or I Kill You! _The wrong grammar is right in this situation. TenTen and Temari were both there, giving each other death glares. There was a boy with either make-up or just lipstick on his face, a hood on and wearing all black there. That Hyuuga Neji guy was sitting away from everybody else, and there was this boy with black hair in a bowl cut, wearing all green with bushy eye brows who reminded me of Gai-sensei.

"Hey, Hikari!" Temari and TenTen both said in unison. They gave each other a brief glare, and then returned their gaze to me. "Naruto insisted that I should come to meet you even though I already know you," TenTen chimed in before Temari could say anything.

"See, we already know her, Naruto, so why interrupt our peaceful break?" Temari said, crossing her legs.

"Okay, fine, do what you want." Naruto grinned anyway. "Hikari-chan, this is Gaara"-he pointed to the kid with the Love tattoo-"and this is Hyuuga Neji, the sophomore student council representative"-the familiar older boy with a superior complex just nodded in my direction-"this is Kankurou, Gaara and Temari's older brother"-he directed his finger at the older boy with makeup-"And, this is Bushy-Brow, or Rock Lee." Naruto finished, nodding his head at the Gai-sensei-look-alike's direction.

"Hikari-san!" Lee immediately ran over to me and knelt down on his right knee. "You're very beautiful! Please let me be your boyfriend!" Talk about straight-forward.

I blinked at him for a second. What would have made this scene complete was a rose in his mouth. Gai-sensei noticed Lee kneeling down in front of me, and cried, "Lee! You're forgetting something!" He gave Rock Lee and rose and then made the scene complete. It's just weird how weirdoes read my mind.

"Thank you but...No thanks. Sorry," I bowed like a good girl.

Lee looked heartbroken, and Sakura, who lingered at the corner of my eye, looked utterly surprised. Clearly, Rock Lee did the same thing to Sakura. Unfortunately, this incident wasn't enough to shake the cherry blossom girl off of me because of jealousy. Sakura stepped into the crowd of people, and ushered Lee as far away from me as possible.

I sat down and started talking with the new people, trying to be social, unlike my real self. I noticed Uchiha Itachi step into the room, looking as normal as ever, and his bunch of friends surround him, asking where he went and stuff. It was nearly the same as me, except only two people surrounded me. I prefer less attention.

I watched him out of the corner of my eye, making sure that Ino-bitch didn't notice. Itachi sat down his group of friends following suite. He had no real expression on his face; everyone around him kept babbling on, but he didn't pay any close attention.

You know what usually happens when you're watching people. You're staring at them intensely, they seem to notice, and they turn their gaze to you, then you quickly look away. That happened to me and Uchiha Itachi right at that moment.

"Itachi-kun, what'cha looking at?" I heard a very loud girl's voice ask.

"…Nothing."

I felt his eyes on me for the entire break.

* * *

_Orochimaru. He got sacked! Heaven! For all I know, he's going to come back dressed up as the new school janitor and try to pull something on me. Watch for people with golden eyes!_

_Hyuuga Neji. A more detailed version of the Hyuuga. It turns out that he's Hinata's cousin, and he despises Hinata for reasons unknown. He has superiority complex, and he doesn't seem very friendly…Naruto thinks of him as a friend, and I have no idea how or why._

_Gaara. Another exchange student from Suna, apparently Temari and Kankurou's younger brother. People say that he's a mass murderer, and he seriously looks like he's capable of being one. He's kind of psychotic, but he's a good guy deep down inside (according to Naruto). The tattoo he has is cool and weird at the same time. Let me ask: Why 'Love'?_

_Kankurou: Temari and Gaara's brother, and another exchange student from Suna. He likes puppets, I suppose. He's a bit like Kiba, if you ask me. Just dogs are replaced with odd-looking puppets. I doubt he wants anything to do with me, anyway. Oh yeah, I think he wears lipstick on his face. _

_Rock Lee. Gai's favorite pupil, Gai's worshipper, the Epitome of Hard Work. All these titles are completely true. All I can say is that he's energetic, chivalrous, athletic, not-so-smart, Neji's rival, Gai's look-alike and act-alike (bushy brows and all) and totally over his head. _

_Uchiha Itachi. STOP LOOKING AT ME LIKE I'M A DAMSEL IN DISTRESS 'CAUSE I'M NOT! YOU WILL PAY!_

* * *

Alright, sorry it took me so long to update! I've been so freaking busy that it's not even funny! I got some writer's block in the beginning of the chapter, too, but the more reviews I get the more motivation…

Screw that last sentence, review if you wish!!!


	3. The New Girl vs Mr Perfect and Handsome

Yay! Thank you all for reading and reviewing so far!!!

The Romeo and Juliet title will come into play a little bit more now. A little. More in the next chapter, I think… I should stop rambling and start writing…Enjoys!

**The New Girl vs. Mr. Perfect and Handsome**

"Life isn't a fairy tale, Sasuke," his stern voice was still music to my ears that time. "Things are never fair. You, of all people, should know that." I kept my arms around him and held him tightly. It was winter, and the blanket fell to the ground, neither of us daring to move to pick it up.

"…I know. What makes you say that, all of a sudden?" I buried my face into his chest, feeling the smooth fabric of his shirt instead of his bare chest.

"Hmm. Nothing. Go to sleep, Sasuke." It was the third time he said it, and yet I still refused. There was something weird going on with him. He wasn't acting like himself in the past few days, and he seemed to pay extra attention to me. I didn't mind about that part. The attention that I always needed from him was suddenly fully focused on me.

"I don't wanna." I gave him my little pout, hoping that it would work.

"You have to."

"Make me."

"…_Fine."_

* * *

I jerked up so suddenly, gasping for air and sweating. I could've sworn his hands were on me again, forcing me to do things that I actually _wanted _to do…But both of us knew back then that I wasn't ready for it, and yet he did it anyway. 

And I still remember what he said a few hours before that incident.

_It's just amazing how an act of love can bring the downfall of love…_

* * *

"Hikari-chan, you look tired today," Naruto gave me a look of worry. Sakura, who ganged up behind Naruto nodded with the same look of worry. "Did you get enough sleep last night?" 

"I'm fine, Naruto," I gave him a small smile as I just stared at the boiled egg, pancakes, and bacon set in front of me. The only good meal this school ever provides is the breakfast. Personally, I wouldn't mind eating breakfast for dinner. Because of that, I love the International House of Pancakes (IHOP). "I'm still getting used to this school, that's all…" It's getting easier to act innocent, like a seven-year-old. Maybe because of that stupid dream/memory…

"Well, here's a great way to get to know people," Sakura plopped down next to me, not even bothering to go grab a tray and get breakfast from that weird cafeteria lady with a hairy mole and huge earrings. "There's a school play, you know, the usual Romeo and Juliet."

"Pff. Our school can't get any more original," Kiba rolled his eyes. "I'm just joining in for the girls, if you know what I mean…" He nudged Naruto roughly, that boy-predator smirk on his face. Naruto just gave him an awkward smile back. "They only pick the _best _for Juliet. And _some_ lucky _guy _will get to _kiss her._" Every word the dog boy emphasized sent another nudge to the poor blonde boy's ribs.

"Argh, stop it, Kiba," Naruto muttered, inching away from his rough friend, blushing and clutching his ribs. "The only good that comes out of that nudging is skipping Gym class!"

I smiled a fake smile again, nibbling on some of my food, not feeling hungry or into this spirited conversation at all. Something marked me different from these kids, and it wasn't just my supposed gender. They were all _truly _innocent.

I couldn't help but feel that I was the scum at this table of angels.

And when I saw him come up with his group of friends again, sitting down at their usual seat, my heat pounded. With what? Fear? Anger?

…Or is it still love?

"Kari-chan, you're as white as a sheet," Sakura's voice brought me out of my hard glare, unclenching my sweating hands and freeing me from that unnatural feeling. "You sure you okay?"

I answered, keeping my stare at the same direction. My glare had disappeared, but it didn't stop me from watching him. The supposed Angel-like god of the school. But to me, he was Satan – Lucifer – the angel who betrayed everyone and created his own world.

A world that was now my living hell.

* * *

The auditions for the play were held after classes that day. There were a lot of people there. It was a school play after all. And everyone in this school loved to do something as weird and useless as this. 

Kakashi turned out to be in charge. This sensei has a secret ability to be more than one place at a time. He stood up on the huge stage, announcing, "There are too many people trying to audition for Juliet, so we're just going to hold the audition for the character Juliet and postpone the other auditions until tomorrow."

Knowing this school, it's probably all the girls who're doing Juliet.

"Hikari-chan, did you sign up?" Naruto asked, gesturing towards a table with a long queue stretching out from it. "It's for the auditions…aren't you going to audition?"

"…I'm not so much of a good actor," I mumbled. Yeah right. Here I am, a boy acting like he's a girl. What a lie…

"Come on, at least try!" Sakura smiled. She signed up for Juliet, too. All girls in this school are confident, except for Hinata, who decided to help out with the costumes. "You look like the type who would be a great actor."

"I'll try…" I muttered, following Naruto over to the line.

As I waited on the line, I heard Naruto and Kiba debating over which character they should audition for in the play.

"Oh, I know the _perfect_ character for me!" Naruto exclaimed behind me. I turned around staring at him. "Tybalt! See, watch!!!" Naruto clutched onto his chest and pretended to die (it was a pretty good act. If only it was real…).

I looked through the script, regretting my decision at each turn of the page. It did turn out that we were using a lot of the weird language like 'thou' and 'dost' and 'thee' and 'thy'. They were making the story almost exactly the same as the book, except, of course, shortened. Characters in Romeo and Juliet have long monologues. Monologues that can be shortened into one simple sentence. Monologues that make me wish that Shakespeare would just get to the point.

For the audition, they were supposed to do this scene where Juliet starts thinking about what she should do about the Romeo and Tybalt and Paris situation. I frowned, staring at the long monologue, parts of it circled for the audition.

Sakura was trying out for Juliet. She seemed confident, but I think she got a bit of stage fright. Her voice became small, but her movements were large. I smiled at her, trying to encourage her. If someone else gets the part, then, terrific. I'd love to be stage crew right now.

"Kyoku Hikari, you're up next," Kakashi said, telling the sobbing girl on the stage to leave. She was sobbing because she sucked, and she knew it.

Not that I'll rule or anything…

"Do your best!" Naruto mouthed at me as I got onto the empty stage. Kakashi nodded at me, and I saw that weird Deidara guy sporting a huge smile on his face. I quickly glanced to the seat next to him, and saw that bastard Itachi sitting there casually, not even paying attention.

Like he thinks that I won't make it.

So much for planning on doing my worst. Time to show this bastard what I can do.

"_Farewell. –God knows when we shall meet again. I have a faint cold fear thrills through my veins that almost freezes up the heat of life…"_

* * *

"Great job, Hikari-chan!" Naruto caught up to me after I finished the long monologue. "I told you you'd be a great actor, ne? Ne?" 

"I haven't gotten the part yet," I muttered a little nervously. There was absolutely no expression on his face when I saw the Uchiha Bastard Itachi. No surprise, no disappointment, nothing. But he was staring at me, which I took as a bad sign. And I have no idea why he was looking at me like that.

"Tomorrow I'm going to try out for Tybalt!" Naruto proudly said, reenacting his death scene.

The cherry blossom Sakura frowned. She obviously knew that she didn't do well, mainly because she's aware of her stage fright and because Ino-bitch decided to laugh at her even when she completely failed at the audition, too.

"_Farewell.-Knows God we when meet shall again. Have I a cold faint thrills fear through my veins that almost heats up the freeze of life…"_

Ino didn't seem to notice how she mixed up more than half of the words. I would've laughed, but I didn't want a replay of the previous cat-fight. Back on that point, a lot of the burns are slowly disappearing, but I still got some people staring at my burned forehead. Hey, at least I'm not scared to show it off to the world. _Hey, people, I got into a cat-fight and burned my forehead with hot chocolate!_

Yeah. Precisely.

* * *

It's the art class in which there's no decent teacher to teach it! Kakashi finally thought of something worthwhile for us bored-out-of-hell art students to do (and the idea is sort of obvious). Landscape painting. Some kids groaned, other kids sat upright, some kids, like me, had no reaction at all. 

I mean, as far as I know, art isn't a skill that I pursue. I usually don't care about anything like 'finding the deep meaning in a picture' and stuff like that. Sure, I marveled at some pictures of something that I knew I couldn't even manage to draw, but that was it. I've never even tried to paint anything in my life, being home schooled in the past.

Kakashi passed out some pictures of beautiful landscapes, since our area was all city and no earth beauty. I turned out to have a sunset on a beach. Oh, how romantic. Sakura was envious of me, because she got stuck with a close-up picture of a volcano, with lava oozing out of it.

"I mean, who in the right mind would go this close up to a volcano just to take a stinking picture of it?" Sakura whispered to me as we were receiving our art supplies. "I swear, this person gave the picture to a pigeon, and then got burned in the lava. And the pigeon found Kakashi-sensei and Kakashi-sensei found me…" Her complaining continued on. "This everything's dark except for the lava! This red, red, orangey-yellowish lava! How the hell am I supposed to do that without messing up! Urrgh…"

I gave her a small smile, still examining my photo. I've been to a beach before, when my parents were still alive and my brother wasn't the bastard that I knew before. I was still young, back in my innocent 7 year old days, but I understood this sunset more than anyone in my family. At that moment, my father finally smiled, my mother finally leaned her head on her husband's shoulder, I was filled with immaculate wonders, and my brother…was just _there. _He had no expression, no wondrous feelings that the rest of my family held. We stood there for what seemed like eternity, and no emotion passed his face. I had begun to watch him, and he knew that my eyes were on him the entire time. His eyes flickered downward, he turned on his heel, and he left the three of us. I stood there, confused.

It was such a beautiful picture. A family, standing on a beach, staring at the sky with marvelously colours blended together, revolving around a sun setting in the horizon, its image reflecting against the shimmering, clear, water.

The only thing that would make it complete was his rare smile.

"Kari-chan! Ohmigosh, how the hell did you do that?" Sakura's voice blasted me out of my reminiscing mind. I saw the same image in front of me, the same family, except no one could tell but me. The family wasn't in the photo, but I painted it there, probably as I was imagining it myself.

Kakashi strode over, his hopes high for an art student that he can depend on to help him throughout the class. His lone eye widened at the sight. "Kyoku-chan, there's no family in the photo, but this is the best work I've seen out of a freshman since Sasori and Deidara!"

I had no time to ponder over who Sasori was, because all of the class surrounded me, edging closer to go and take a look at the picture.

"Look, mine looks like complete shit," Sakura mumbled. It did look sort of crappy. She got the dark parts fine, but she was right in worrying about the multi-coloured lava. "Feh, I hate art class!"

Kakashi was too busy staring at my picture to reprimand her cursing.

* * *

In the end, the picture that I painted got displayed. When I came around a corner, I saw a bunch of students, mainly the popular seniors, surrounded by the art room. I decided not to worry about the ruckus, but Naruto and Sakura held me back. 

"Whoa, Deidara, this girl's catching up to you!"

"She has to beat Sasori before she beats me, yeah," I heard that blonde's voice in the middle of the crowd. "Uhh…Kyoku Hikari…Hey isn't she that girl who slapped you the other day, Itachi, yeah?"

The name Itachi grabbed my attention. Instead of insisting that we leave to get to dinner early, I froze, my ears ready to pick up any other morsel of information on my evil, evil, evil brother.

"Hn." That was his voice. I could tell.

"That's pretty amazing for a freshman." An unfamiliar male's voice rose from the crowd.

"You guys can go on ahead. I'll catch up later." Itachi's voice was strict, as usual. Deidara said, "Yeah, yeah, yeah," and the unknown guy said, "Uh, fine." The girls surrounding the area let out an 'Awww!' and left with Deidara and the guy who I think was Sasori.

I pulled Naruto and Sakura to hide behind a nearby garbage can, so Itachi couldn't see us. He stood there, still staring at my painting. _What's he planning to do, trash it?_

Then my heart froze. Can he tell who that family is from their figures? I squinted at my own painting. Sure enough, the short figure, who was me, had hair spiked up at the back. The woman had this Mikoto look written all over her. The man looked exactly like Fugaku to me, with his shoulder-length hair. And the teenager standing a little further from the rest had long hair pulled back.

Itachi stared at the picture, studying it just as I did. "Kyoku Hikari…huh?"

What kind of reaction was that?

* * *

"You okay, Kari-chan?" Sakura whispered to me when we got to the cafeteria for dinner. Why she was whispering? Because she didn't want Uzumaki Naruto to butt into our conversation, like he always does. "You look sort of freaked out…" 

"Huh? Oh, yeah, I'm fine," I muttered, my appetite disappearing when the subject of my thoughts came into the room. "…I'm just not so hungry right now."

"That's a waste of the money your parents are spending to send you here." Here comes the blonde, butting into our conversation, destroying the hopes of the cherry blossom. "Seriously, what's wrong?"

Naruto was starting to get a little pushy now. Maybe it's because he's jealous again, even when I made it (sort of) clear that I just want to be friends. I ignored the blonde, standing up, pushing my food into the garbage can.

And the white haired, multi-tasking sensei was standing right there. "Kyoku-chan, do you have a moment?" He said his one and only eye showing slowly turned into an upside down u. I nodded shakily, wondering if I was in trouble or if I was going to be praised or something.

He led me into the art room again, and I started feeling a little more secure just because it's art, the subject that I suddenly excelled in. It's just human nature to feel secure when you know you're better than most people. It makes you feel superior - superiority leads to arrogance at times. My older brother told me that, but I have no idea why it came up in my head at this moment. Ever since he told me that, I swore I'd never become like that.

"Kyoku-chan, you're a really excellent student," Kakashi started. I nodded and hid my frown. Teachers don't know how to be straight-forward, do they? "But… I can't help but think that something is on your mind." Yeah. This one's straight-forward.

First of all, this caught me off guard. Second of all, I realized that this is a teacher to be careful of. Third of all, I panicked about what to say back. I could avoid all the trouble and tell him the truth, about me really being a guy and all, and just hope that he would keep it a secret. Then again, I can lie and hope he won't find out, and keep my current reputation as a female.

Somehow, my balance that was my mind tilted towards the male side. The fact that I still didn't trust this masked sensei caused my mind to race for a good lie.

"Kakashi-sensei, what makes you say that?" I said, hoping that the words didn't spill out too quickly. I closed my eyes and faked a smile. "I'm perfectly _fine _so please don't worry about me." I wished I could take back the emphasis that I placed on the word _fine. _But what's done is done, I guess...

Kakashi stared at me intensely, and then nodded. "…If you say so, then I won't worry. But, you can come to me whenever you have any troubles, alright?"

I nodded. "Uh…May I leave now?"

* * *

_Hatake Kakashi. Watch what you say, he's onto me…_

_Sasori. I don't know much about this guy. He's in Itachi Bastard's class, and he's apparently a pretty good artist._

* * *

I power walked back to the cafeteria, now certain that Kakashi is someone that I have to be extra careful of. I figured he was suspicious because Itachi told him about Sasuke (or me). Kakashi and Itachi seemed like the kind of people who would sort of get along. But what the hell do I know? 

Oh. That's right. Nothing.

I opened the door to the cafeteria. Some people were still there, like the popular group that completely revolves around Itachi and my large group of weird friends.

Naruto's loud voice drifted across the room, repeating something about the play and being the character Tybalt. I walked over to the group, plopping down next to the knuckle-headed blonde and the Sakura.

"Where were you?" Naruto exclaimed, his blue eyes wide.

"Kakashi-sensei wanted to talk to me, that's all…" I mumbled, pushing a strand of hair behind my ear.

Naruto grinned and continued to talk about the play, but I didn't pay attention. I bit my lip, staring at the group a few tables in front of us, spotting Itachi immediately. Instead of his usual seat in the middle of the group's chaos, he sat closer to the edge, leaning back and away from the conversations that the older kids had. I think he felt that my eyes on him. He turned around and stared at me, with no real emotion in his face. I flinched a little, but I kept my gaze on him, instead of looking away quickly.

"Kari-chan, Itachi-senpai's looking at _you…_" That was Sakura. I heard a 'humph' that was Ino, but I ignored her, and kept staring, hard, at him. "Kari-chan, what are you _doing?"_

I slammed my hand down on the table, causing some people to jump and look up, to see what the commotion was. A small smirk played across the bastard's face as I stood up and advanced towards him.

Nothing in my mind made clear sense, like why I was mad at him. All I knew was that his face irritates me to hell and I can't stand it! He didn't seem to be alerted by my coming over there – he continued to calmly sit down, pretending that I'm not going to make a difference in his life. I stopped in front of him, staring down at him. It made me feel a little depressed inside, knowing that this is the only way I can ever down on him. He's always superior to me. That's why he's always secure around me.

If that's the case, what the hell does it make _me?_

"What else do you want in my life?" I demanded with my voice loud and clear. It surprised me that I was able to make sure my voice didn't go down to the 'male' section, but it didn't really matter at the moment.

"…Why are you so mad?" His voice was composed, serene…calm. Too calm.

"Just looking at you irritates me!" I felt every pair of eyes on me, including the lunch ladies. Some people were whispering, some people just staring, some just watching but not paying close attention because they don't care.

A smirk appeared and disappeared. "You know, you're making such a big deal out of this." The bastard looked up at me, his eyes narrowing coolly.

In the corner of my eye, Gai-sensei was ready to pounce if there was any physical problem. When I glanced at Gai-sensei, I noticed something that would temporarily help my problem – if only temporarily. It didn't matter if I got detention or just got a warning, this plan was going to be carried out for my own sake.

"Hey, Itachi…" Deidara came over. He somehow convinced the lunch ladies to give him extra mashed potatoes. "Whoa, aren't you the girl who painted that nice picture of that sunset? Awesome, yeah!"

We both ignored him, but commenced my plan. "You know, let's compromise." I smiled at him, tilting my head sideways. "Ne?"

Itachi just raised an eyebrow. He isn't gullible. I know that much. But I don't think he's in for this. He kept his eyes on me, but my eyes were closed. For no particular reason, I've decided on no eye contact. Just looking into his eyes make me feel…irritated?

"Can I have this for a sec?" I asked the confused Deidara. I didn't wait for an answer; I just took the mashed potatoes and stuffed it into Itachi's face. I saw a small look of shock, but it was quickly concealed with the potatoes.

"…My mashed potatoes!" Deidara yelled, staring at the scene with shock.

_Sasuke – 2_

_Itachi – 1 _

"Just keep your face covered and everything will be fine."

I decided not to see the aftershocks of what just happened. Don't look back. Even though I felt triumphant inside, his eyes were still watching me. Watching me in some what that somewhat made my heart lurch. Lurch in a good way or a bad way?

But either way, I refuse to lose to him.

* * *

Oooooh. Thanks for reviewing, and I promise to get more up as soon as possible! My teachers decided to be mean this week and give me a lot of homework, so…yeahs! 

Oh yeah, and the thing about feeling superior and secure and becoming arrogant isn't the same thing that Itachi said to Sasuke at the Uchiha Flashbacks. You might as well make it, if you want to. I realized this fact after I wrote the paragraph, but I decided to keep it anyways...

Reviewing fuels my motivation!!! It seriously does make me write better.


	4. The Balcony Scene

Thank you all for reading this so far! Sorry for the slow update and I don't think I have a good reason for it except for Holiday tiredness and the fact that I have to work on a fanfiction that I'm making for a friend…I wish we could spend the Holidays without all this preparation!

Oh well. Enjoys!!!

**Chapter Four: The Balcony Scene is Supposed to be Romantic!**

I can make a list of what happened in my life. And trust me. It won't be that long. First was my birth, of course. Second was when _it _started. Third was when _it _happened and ruined _it. _Fourth was when _he _ran away. Fifth was when my parents died in a car crash and left me alone at home. Sixth is right now, when I'm doing the craziest thing that I've ever done in my life…Other than _it _of course.

Let's play a game, then. Fill in the words in italics with the most appropriate word for the paragraph. Enjoy, I suppose.

* * *

_Uchiha Itachi. Let's just hope he keeps his pie face for the rest of the year._

* * *

The highlight of today was the Romeo auditions. A lot of guys were going to try out for Romeo, and, as I said before, knowing this school every single guy's aiming for the Romeo part.

It just so happened that a lot of guys changed their minds about being stage hands and signed up for Romeo. I guess it was because a lot of the girls the men would rate as 'beautiful' or any other compliment did well as Juliet, and they're hoping that they get to kiss her. And, in the back of their minds, they're imagining _practicing_ the kiss scene backstage. I should know what's going on in these perverted boys' minds.

Naruto signed up for both Romeo and Tybalt. "I'd really like to get Romeo, but its okay if I just get Tybalt." He shrugged. "I'm not that good with memorizing, so maybe Tybalt's a better part for me…" The blonde gestured towards the large script that he was holding.

So true. He's horrible at memorizing, and all these monologues are knocking out all of the people who can't memorize too well. Then again, this play is happening at the end of the year, so they really do have plenty of time to get ready and memorize and stuff. Then again, teachers decide to be mean and have them memorize the entire script in one fell swoop.

I just sat there and watched a lot of boys getting dismissed, broken-hearted. And most of all, they're getting their self-esteem crushed. I saw one of them break down and cry.

Only when Rock Lee came up as Romeo, I really paid attention to the lines. He was very dramatic, and very good. He could've gotten the part of Romeo. I saw Gai at the corner of the stage crying tears of youth (…weird).

"_But soft, what light through yonder window breaks? It is the East, and Juliet is the sun. Arise, fair sun, and kill the envious moon, who is already sick and pale with grief."_

This old-time language just makes me wonder how the hell any of the crowd would understand what's going on. Maybe they'll have scripts translated into language idiots can understand in every other seat.

But, back to Lee. He did really well. I saw the judges sitting in the front row whisper into each other's ears. Kakashi was the nice judge, Pein was the mean judge, and Asuma was the so-so judge. I listened close to what they said to Lee, but I couldn't quite hear them over all the noise everyone else was making. I saw Lee nod, and leave the stage, still in tears, with Gai-sensei.

"What? He so should've made it." I heard TenTen's voice behind me, and I spun around. She acknowledged me with a smile and a wave, before continuing on to Neji, who was sitting next to him. "Lee's been going crazy over this play since the beginning of the year! Man, I'm in the room below him and I can hear him yelling those words out like he's standing right behind me!"

The judges gave a loud "Next!" and sat back, not expecting anything from the next contestant.

* * *

Sakura and I were walking down the hallway, going back to our dorm rooms at the end of the day. A large crowd appeared the end of the hall when we rounded the corner; most of it consisted of girls. "What's going on?" Sakura whispered to me. Instead of pushing our way through the throng, we waiting until it dispersed before approaching the bulletin board that they were crowded around.

A small group of girls passed by us, stopping and giving us (me?) a bitter glare. I spotted Ino among them. "I hope you're happy, Hikari." They strode passed us, chins up high and not looking back.

"What was that about?" Sakura said, raising her eye brow, and then turning to look at the bulletin board. "Oh. My. God! Kari-chan, you are the luckiest girl in the school!" She grabbed my shoulders and steered me around, facing me towards the board.

_**Romeo and Juliet **_

_Juliet – Kyoku Hikari_

_Romeo – (Due to the fact that none of the students who auditioned were able to meet any of the requirements for the part, the best student who we knew could do the part with no effort was chosen) Uchiha Itachi_

I stopped reading right then and there. Like I said a few days ago, my life has become a living hell thanks to him. And now I have to _kiss _him? And pretend that I _love _him? The pretend part plays a good role in the sentence but… still!

_Montague – Hoshigaki Kisame_

_Lady Montague – Konan_

_Benvolio – Sai_

_Abram – Kankurou_

_Balthasar – Rock Lee_

_Capulet – Deidara_

_Lady Capulet – (Due to the fact that no student who auditioned met our requirements, we chose a teacher to play this part) Tsunade_

_Nurse – Haruno Sakura_

_Tybalt – Uzumaki Naruto_

_Petruchio – Inuzuka Kiba_

_Friar Lawrence – Sasori_

_Paris – Hyuuga Neji_

There was more to the list, but I the rest were people that I didn't know. Sakura was still 'Omigosh'ing in the corner. "Sakura-chan, you made it to the nurse. Ino's not even on here," I said, giving her an encouraging smile. "That's good, because I think we're in a lot of scenes together."

"Y-yeah, but you're with Uchiha Itachi! I know you hate the guy but I'm so jealous!" Sakura squealed loudly. I covered one of my ears but kept my smile on. "I mean…this is so awesome! This school year's play will be so good!!!" She kept on kyaaing.

"Naruto must be happy. He got Tybalt." I tried to find the good out of the situation by far. Sakura calmed down after a bit, but she still had a wide smile on her face. Even when we left the now empty hallway, I still had nothing that really benefits me.

But then again, what's stopping me from torturing Mr. Perfect-and-Handsome during the practice?

* * *

_School Play. A bundle of fun. I'm serious._

* * *

It was the next day. It was completely normal, except for the fact that the news was beginning to sink in about me being Juliet and Itachi being Romeo. I received a lot of glares from girls like Ino, and a lot of thumbs-up from sympathetic girls, and a lot of 'I'm sorry for you' from girls who knew how much I loathed the guy.

Naruto was happy about his part with Tybalt – not as content as he would be with Romeo, but it was good enough. He told me about Sai, too, this weird guy that really doesn't talk much but he hangs out in the group. I guess he's that guy who's always standing in the corner of the room grinning like the complete idiot I think he is. The other guys who made their parts were particularly happy, but a bit disappointed that they didn't make Romeo. But let's face it, none of the guys who auditioned made Romeo. It caused a small riot, I heard, in the boy's floor. They were ballistic about the fact that Uchiha Itachi got it, especially.

"Mr. Perfect gets everything," Kiba said irritably. Then he brightened up. "Hey, but great job on getting Juliet. Torture that guy for us, 'kay?"

And, of course, I took up on their offer.

We were heading out of homeroom and into our next class, which is gym, one of the classes where I was allowed to change in my own separate room thanks to Tsunade's few adjustments due to my experiment. Still, it'd only be a matter of time before someone finds out. It just takes the kids here longer because they're a bit thick.

Sakura paused behind me, which is unusual because she usually stays close behind me like a loyal servant who thinks that their master doesn't believe in personal space sometimes. She inched backwards and peeked through the window into our homeroom, where Kakashi and two students that he called back were, talking.

"Huh? Sakura, what's wrong?" I asked, stopping abruptly and turning around. Her green eyes stared into the room with concentration, which was usual. Only in class, though. Sakura was even zoned-out enough to ignore my voice. "Earth to Sakura, what's up?" I grinned slightly, waving my hand in front of her face. What's so important about Kakashi talking to Naruto and Kiba? They've always been getting into trouble, it's probably just that."

And yes, Kakashi was talking to Naruto and Kiba.

"Uh, nothing. You can go on ahead without me, okay?" Sakura said, giving me one of those trust-me smiles. I just nodded and headed to my own private locker room, giving Sakura a backwards glance just to show her that I'm a little worried.

Yes. I'm worried. I hate it when people say 'go on ahead without me'. It's a bit clichéd, but the first thing anyone says when they have to stay behind to see something through. The phrase naturally gets me worried, and makes me think of those dramatic movies or video games when everyone dies when they're reaching the final battle and only the main character gets through it all alive.

But I'm confusing my life with a fairy tale again.

* * *

Sakura didn't make it to gym. And that seriously got me freaked out. Sakura's crazy over perfect attendance and perfect grades and perfect, perfect, everything. Well, she's not like Mr. Handsome and Perfect, but she tries her best, and skipping out on gym just because she's spying on Kakashi talking to Naruto and Kiba isn't like her.

But what made me even more worried was that Naruto and Kiba was at gym. I stared at them suspiciously for the entire period, and Kiba actually started to scratch at his face and mouth to me, 'Is there something on my face?' Naruto, being the unobservant idiot he is, didn't notice.

* * *

I heard later, in Biology class, that Sakura had to go to the nurse's office because she got hurt in the hallway. Kurenai-sensei told me that, when I asked where Sakura was. She didn't sound worried or anything like that, so I assumed that that pink-haired girl was alright. Then again, teachers always try to assure us that everything's alright even when it isn't, so I didn't completely trust the pregnant woman. Still, Kurenai's probably the most reliable member of the faculty here.

Man, what happened _to 'It's better to trust and keep being deceived than live your life not trusting anybody'_? Nowadays, virtues are a waste of time. Especially when you've got more important things to worry about.

* * *

Chemistry Class was cancelled, so we got a period of freedom. A period which I wasted on locating the whereabouts of the missing Haruno Sakura. Pink hair, green eyes, wearing red, totally annoying at times – you can't miss her.

I walked over to the nurse's office and gently knocked on the door. Apparently, being a nurse in this school is a hard job. Kids get injured in gym, they get injured in fights throughout the campus, they get the guts to break their own leg so they don't have to get hurt during gym, they pretend to commit suicide (Naruto told me one guy accidentally succeeded) because they're homesick and they want to see their mommies, they faint from all the pressure they're getting from a hard test, they fall asleep in class because they got drunk last night and they're just beginning to sleep out the hangover or because they didn't get enough sleep last night, and they think that acting perverted around principal Tsunade is fun.

Konan looked up from her desk, and gave me a tired, but warm smile. "Kyoku-chan, right?" she said. I was surprised that she remembered my name, especially with the time passing and the hordes of students coming in and out. Or maybe my case was unique in a way and she recognized me by the small burns on my forehead. "Well, what's up?"

I decided to keep this nice and brief. "Did Haruno Sakura come by…I think two periods ago?" I kept my spot at the doorway, afraid to come in. I heard some serious moaning from a bed, and I didn't want to find out who it was, or what happened, or how hideous the scene might be.

"Haruno Sakura?" Konan rested her chin in her hand, thinking for just a few seconds before answering. "Yes. She's asleep right now, so…I doubt she'll be in classes until tomorrow. Nothing serious – she did hit her head, but she's not in a coma. It's a very light sleep."

I didn't see her in the office, but I knew that the room had to be large in order for it to house all those injured kids. "Oh. Thank you very much. Can you tell me when she wakes up?" I asked, placing my hand on the doorknob, already ready to leave.

The moaning that was coming from deep inside the room suddenly stopped. Konan flinched upwards from her lazy position, standing up. She gets a break for a moment, and now she's back to business. You've got to feel sorry for people who work that hard. "Mmm. Sure, no problem." Konan didn't even turn around to see me leave. It didn't matter if she was courteous or not – I got at least some of my worries healed.

Sakura still didn't come back even once the school day had passed by, so, naturally, I got worried. When I checked back at the nurse's office, Konan told me that she was resting in her own room. And then when I checked at her room, which she shared with Ino, Ino just slammed the door shut in my face.

And seriously, what's the hurt in seeing if your friend is okay or not? Nothing. Ino's got serious problems. How long can a girl hold a grudge? I'm just holding it because a girl's supposed to hold a grudge for a long time (I think).

* * *

The Sakura problem still remained when I got back into my room. In the safety of my single dorm room, I can actually act like myself, dress like myself, and actually be a boy again. Though, I've got to admit, being a girl isn't getting any harder than it is getting easier. The only casualty I've had to suffer so far is…him.

If you know what I mean.

When I entered the room, I heard some odd noise coming from the window or air vent or something, but I shrugged it off as a lab rat gone loose. I plopped down on the bed, stared at the ceiling for a long time, then grabbed my notebook full of notes that I made throughout the day and started pondering on what I should write in it next.

Nothing. Nothing happened today. I've never really gone to a school with other people, but days seem to go by so slowly, like one subject is one day and the next subject is another, if nothing's going on. And usually, nothing's going on. Somehow, I think boring days in this school are rare. Then again, I'm just inferring.

I sat up abruptly and made my way to a drawer and placed the notebook and sighed, deciding to change and then do my homework. It's just natural for a guy that's in a situation like mine to bring girls' clothes to their boarding school, but it doesn't mean that I can't bring some of the clothes that I would actually wear along with me. I opened another drawer and pulled out shorts and a baggy T-Shirt.

I heard an "Ow!" up somewhere. The noise shocked me, and I sat up, and then looked around to see if there was anyone spying. I was being a bit too cautious, but ever since Kakashi talked to me back then I've already decided that I had to be a little more careful. When a long moment of silence came, I shrugged, thinking that it was probably just some boys or girls doing some weird things like they always do.

I pulled of the girl's shirt, which by the way actually fits me and actually somehow makes me look like a girl…I swear, if anyone finds out, they'll laugh and point and me and say SasUKE! This is why I hate my name.

Before I pulled on the baggy T-shirt, I heard some sort of cry of surprise from the ceiling. I jerked up and the ceiling crashed, causing two boys to plop down, one on top of the other. "Naruto! Kiba!" I didn't even bother to raise my voice so I sounded feminine, because it was obviously too late to try and hide my 'true identity'.

Again, I think that I'm confusing my life with a fairy tale. Or rather, a comic book.

"What the hell are you doing in my ceiling?" I demanded, inching away from the wreck they made of the middle of my room. Naruto and Kiba didn't answer immediately – they spent a few minutes scrambling up and wiping themselves off of rubble.

"Uh, Hikari-chan…Hikari-kun, we can explain this!" Naruto said, his face was completely flushed, he was stuttering like crazy, and he was avoiding eye contact with me. Kiba stayed silent and gaped at me as if I were an actual alien from outer space. "Seriously, we didn't mean to…I mean, uh…Kiba, you explain!" The blonde ran behind the dog-lover.

"Look, it's just that…uhm…" Kiba scratched the back of his head, then shook his head rapidly and looked me straight in the eye and said, or yelled, in all seriousness, "YOU'RE A GUY?" Now, that wasn't so hard, now was it?

"Yeah? What about it?" I grumbled, kicking at a rock. "You didn't answer my question. Why were you hiding in the ceiling?"

"Well, Kakashi-sensei paid us to…" Naruto started, still hiding behind Kiba. I held up my hand to show that that was all I needed to know. Kakashi was behind this incident, and one of the only things that drive the boys in this school to do anything other than girls is probably money. "He paid us to spy on you," the blonde finished despite my gesture.

"Did he tell you why?" I demanded, sitting down on the bed, staring at a piece of cloth that was the shirt I was just going to put on. It was buried under the rubble the two idiots made out of my room.

"No he just…sort of paid us," Kiba said, crossing his arms and taking deep breaths. Dog-breath was clearly getting used to the fact that I was a boy. Naruto, who was still cursing under his breath, was still completely fazed.

"How much?"

"Uh, thirty dollars each…" Kiba explained.

"I'll give you both fifty dollars if you don't tell Kakashi anything," I snapped back. Kiba and Naruto both looked surprised, but they nodded, accepting the money that I handed out to them.

"Can you explain?" Naruto said, stuffing the money in his pocket, and then sitting down on the ground. I gave him a glare, and sat down on the bed. "The only other reason we accepted was because we were interested in you, Hikari-chan."

I frowned. "I'm not Kyoku Hikari. My name is Uchiha Sasuke."

"Sasuke?" Kiba exclaimed with a disbelieving smile. "That anti-social kid who lives alone in that huge mansion? Man, this is too weird. I'd never thought I'd meet you in my life, since you spend all that time locked up in that huge house."

"Wait, so you're Itachi's younger brother?" Naruto chipped in, sharing the same expression of surprise on his face with Kiba. "So that's why you hate him so much? Wait, why do you hate him so much?"

I crossed my arms and pouted at the two of them. "Do you want me to explain or not?" Kiba and Naruto finally quit spewing out questions and listened. I sighed and got started. "Yeah, I'm that anti-social kid who spends his entire day locked up in the basically empty Uchiha Mansion. It's been that way for me since my brother ran away and parents died in a car accident five months ago. Since I've never met you before, and you've never met me before until now, I was obviously home schooled. Then, I decided to enroll myself into a real school with real people. The principal, Tsunade, sort of forced me into this cross-dressing thing, for no particular reason. And…that's mainly it."

"…Oh, okay…" Kiba nodded.

"Then I've been hitting on an anti-social freak that has the need to cross-dress in order to fit into a boarding school this entire time?" Naruto raised his eyebrow and shot Kiba a confused look. Kiba shrugged back at him.

"Shut up, Uzumaki," I groaned. "Will you guys please not tell anyone about this? I'd prefer not to be gaped at for the rest of my high school life here."

"Pfft. Even if we told everyone, it won't change how many people are gaping at you everyday," Kiba blew a brown hair out of the way of his face. I stared at him, my eyes asking him for an explanation for what he just said. "Everyone's talking about you and your constant showdowns with Uchiha Itachi – the heartthrob of the school, the teacher's pet, tall, dark, perfect, rich, and handsome. All those titles are true, too. No girl-" I shot Kiba a glare "Sorry, I mean, guy…or anyone in this school ever had the guts to go in the middle of attention and slap him or stick mashed potatoes in his face ever. Do you get it?"

"And that just leads us to our next question," Naruto announced. "Why do you hate him so much, anyway? He's not _that _bad, I think, but I don't know him well, so…Why?"

I sucked in a breath, making it look like I was seriously going to tell them. I let out the air and ran a hand through my raven coloured hair which was spiking up to its original shape. "Give me a good reason to tell you. He's just…Argh." I plopped down on the bed, and added in, "By the way, you guys have to fix up my ceiling." I couldn't help but smirk as I pointed to the wrecked ceiling and the tired and annoyed faces Naruto and Kiba were making.

* * *

_Naruto and Kiba. Officially allies. _

_Hatake Kakashi. DON'T TRUST HIM!_

* * *

We stood on the stage, during the one of the most awkward scenes in the entire play. He had a smirk on his face, but Kakashi didn't notice because he was sitting too far away. I glared at him and forced out the 'romantic' words. Naruto and Kiba were whispering to each other, and I shot them a nice glare with ice daggers, too.

"But soft, what light through yonder window breaks? It is the East, and Juliet is the sun. Arise, fair sun, and kill the envious moon, who is already sick and pale with grief. That thou, her maid, art far more fair than she." Itachi spoke the words carefully, watching me carefully, like he thinks I'm going to do something. I rolled my eyes, and only Itachi noticed. "See how she leans her cheek upon her hand. O, that I were a glove upon that hand, that I might touch that cheek!"

I stared at him, blanking out for a second. He stared back at me in a way that was sort of expectant, and then I realized that it was my turn to finally speak. "Ay me." Holding back laughter was getting very difficult at that point.

"She speaks. O, speak again, bright angel, for thou art as glorious to this night, being over my head, as is a winged messenger of heaven unto the white-upturned wondering eyes of mortals that fall back to gaze on him when he bestrides the lazy puffing clouds and sails upon the bosom of the air."

I raised my eyebrow, surprised he even memorized all of these stupid monologues. I mean, practically everything Romeo says about Juliet means 'She's hot' in real language. Can't he just say that instead? I snuck a glance at the script in my hand, feeling a bit guilty and inferior as I spoke. "O Romeo, Romeo, wherefore art thou Romeo? Deny thy father and refuse thy name, or if thou wilt not, but be sworn my love, and I'll no longer be a Capulet."

I put the script down and rolled my eyes again. How old were Romeo and Juliet? Fourteen or fifteen? Who the gets married at that age? And kids younger than that have kids! Either everyone in the past were little whores, or Shakespeare's just a little crazy.

"Shall I hear more, or shall I speak at this?"

I eyed him suspiciously. How can anyone say these odd things and _not _be fazed? Geez…

"'Tis but thy name that is my enemy. Thou art thyself, though not a Montague. What's Montague? It is nor hand, nor foot, nor arm, nor face, nor any other part belonging to a man. So Romeo would, where he not Romeo called, retain that dear perfection…Oh geez." I put down the script and ran a hand through my hair.

"Wait, what?" Kakashi yelled, standing up. "Kyoku-chan, why'd you…?"

"Mmm-hmm, yeah, this explains a lot!" I groaned, crossing my arms. "You and your perfection! You and your perfect little world! Ugh, I am not…going to stand for _this!" _I was basically talking to myself at point.

Itachi's smirk remained on his face. "It's just a play, so say the lines and make all of our lives easier."

"Kids! This is not part of the script!" Kakashi yelled.

"You know, why the hell did you have to pick _him _out of all students, anyway!? Lee was perfectly fine! So were about half of the boys that auditioned but no…Give me a reason why you had to pick him!" I yelled up to Kakashi and pointed at Itachi in frustration. The people sitting in the audience started to whisper a lot to each other, and I saw some glares being received by some girls.

"Because, none of the other boys met our qualifications." Kakashi said simply. "On with the play, start the scene over!"

Itachi gave me that smirk again and was about to start the play over again. I climbed down from the balcony, and Kakashi started stuttering in surprise. Itachi kept his calm composure until I approached him and kicked him, hard, in the shins.

"Itachi-san!" Girls squealed from the audience as I stomped off the stage.

"I'm taking a break…" I yelled to Kakashi before walking out into the bathroom.

No girl bothered to bother me for the five minutes I spent in there cooling off, trying to calm myself, and trying to erase that smirk from my head for the rest of eternity. I heard the door creak open, and I jerked up, expecting to see Ino with an angry expression on my face.

"Kari-chan." It was Sakura's voice. "You did great against Itachi-senpai again."

"Sakura-chan, you're alright?" I said, standing up.

"Yeah. I just got to the auditorium just in time for your little performance," she smiled at me. "And…Kakashi-sensei told me to tell you something." I blinked at her, and she went on. "You have lunch detention with Itachi for a week. Meaning you're forced to eat lunch with Itachi. Alone."

"Aw, geez."

* * *

Yay! Finally finished! Sorry it took a while for me to update, knowing it's the Holidays and all. So, thanks for being patient!!! Hope you enjoyed and read and review!!! 


	5. Even Perfect People Get Detention

* * *

Wow, thank you all for the reviews! I wrote this entire chapter with the comfort of my Itachi plushie!!! Call me obsessed, but I love my Itachi!!! Sorry for the long wait for me to update, but I think that this is a worth it chapter!

About all your questions about Sasuke's past…It will be mentioned in this fic, so…read carefully!

**Even Perfect People Get in Detention**

"I…can't believe this!" I woke up to the sound of my mother's crying that was reaching hysteria. I was lying on his bed, the bed where he left me on. It was cold outside, maybe because it was in the middle of January. I pulled a baggy shirt on and tip-toed outside, hoping to catch a glimpse of what's going on without having to expose myself to my parents.

"Mikoto, we can figure this out…Maybe he just went out for a walk." That was Fugaku's weak excuse for an excuse. My mother just broke into more tears and fell to her knees, shaking her head and whispering to her self, _This can't be happening…This can't be happening. _

"…What's going on?" I dared to come out of my hiding place. Mikoto flinched, looked at me with her blue eyes filled with tears, ran over to me and then enveloped me in a tight, mother bear hug.

"Oh, Sasuke, you're still here! Thank God!" I felt her cold tears soak my shirt as I wrapped my arms around her shaking body. "Sasuke…thank the heavens…" she kept whispering as if she were talking to herself.

"What happened?" I asked, even though it's obvious asking wouldn't help the situation at all. "Where's Nii-san?"

"Sasuke, Itachi ran away," Fugaku said, his face showing a bit of shock. He stayed calm, unlike my mother.

My parents spent the rest of the day fussing over Itachi's sudden disappearance. My mother paid some attention to me, and my father kept wandering around the house, as if he was trying to find a reason for his being here anymore.

And of course, they didn't notice me limping. Which was probably a good thing.

* * *

"Have the teacher's ever learned that they is a limit to how much they can torture I student!?" I yelled, taking out my anger on the bathroom wall. Sakura gave me a small smile but didn't say anything. By this point, she already learned that I hate Uchiha Itachi, and that it's forbidden to 'kyaa' over him around me.

Ino popped her head in, looking cross. "Hikari, Kakashi-sensei wants you to come back now." She spoke quickly and then left the bathroom.

I walked back outside and saw the white-haired sensei shaking his head and talking to Itachi. He seemed pretty calm, but he was balancing his weight on his uninjured leg. I smirked to myself at the sight of him injured. Itachi turned and looked my way, with that same look of amusement on his face.

I looked away. My wish for him to keep his pie face permanent just wouldn't come true.

"Kyoku-chan, we're ending the practice for today," Kakashi said, frowning underneath his mask. "Please don't fight with Itachi-kun during practice. We need to get this play done."

I crossed my arms and pouted, giving a small "Yes, sensei."

"Good." the sensei gave the Itachi a stern look, and gave me a plain old 'look'. "You both have detention together, so…enjoy your lunch." I glared at Itachi and Kakashi. Kakashi was now beaming happily down in the depths of his mask. Itachi kept an emotionless face as he stared at something through the corner of his eye. "Well, then…" Kakashi turned around and walked off.

"I hate you." I muttered to Itachi as I stomped off. I felt his eyes on the back of my neck. "Find something better to stare at!" I yelled at him before marching out of the auditorium with Naruto and Sakura.

* * *

Now, when I walk into the cafeteria to have lunch, my living hell rises around me. "Good luck, Kari-chan," Sakura whispered to me as she drifted away with Naruto to the table where I used to sit at. I nodded to her and approached the empty table next to the teacher's, where the bastard Itachi was sitting.

"Hey." Itachi nodded his head to at least acknowledge my existence. I wasn't sure what to say back, so I decided to give him the silent treatment. I put my bag on the back of the chair and walked back to the line, right behind Naruto, who gave me a sympathetic look. I took my time on the lunch line, hoping to stay there long enough so that I wouldn't have to sit next to him.

But, eventually playing it safe became boring.

I placed the tray on the table and plopped down on the other side of Itachi, hoping I'd get a chance to catch him off guard and stomp down hard on his foot. We didn't say anything, but during the long, silent period we both learned at least one thing we actually have in common – our small appetite.

It was nearing the end of the lunchtime when he decided to speak. "Why do you hate me so much, anyway?" He clearly tried to sound casual about it, but he had a bit of a bothered expression which he tried to conceal.

I brushed a raven lock out of my eyes and had a small debate on whether to reply or not in my head. Itachi stared at me, as if he was a scientist and I was a lab rat. The debate in my mind was still going on, but my past self seemed to speak for itself. "…I don't."

Itachi winced, surprised. I mean, why wouldn't he be? I already growled at least ten million times to him that I hated him, then why did I say that I didn't? I mentally kicked myself but still avoided his gaze. If I really did know something about my older brother, it would be his strange ability to determine a person's true feelings by just looking into their eyes. The only downfall of that ability would be the fact that his stare is so intimidating that no one would even have the willpower to look straight back at him.

"…You don't?" His calm composure was back up immediately, not letting anyone have a look at his true face. That seemed to be the end of the conversation we had that day, because he went back to his food, which he just fingered at. I desperately needed to get out of the awkward atmosphere that arose around the two of us, so I took my tray, threw the food away, and placed it on the growing stack. Naruto and Sakura glanced backwards at me, and I gave them a weak smile before returning to the awkward moment.

Itachi ran his hand through his dark hair and looked away from me when I approached, which was a rare movement. I sat down and stared at Gai who was listening to his iPod and swaying to the music. After a while, Itachi's eyes were on me again, watching my every movement.

"So, how was it? Give him the silent treatment or did you talk like best friends?" Sakura ran over to me after lunch, Naruto trailing behind the both of us. "I watched you both; it looked like you were giving each other the silent treatment."

I shrugged, not knowing myself. The Itachi problem was now officially taking over my school life – and that was bad news for me. The last thing that I wanted was someone taking over my life, especially Itachi. It reminded me of my mixed emotions of when he ran away, how I was so happy and relieved yet so abandoned and lonely.

"Hikari-chan's not gong to succumb to the likes of Uchiha Itachi!" Naruto yelled in a very Lee-and-Gai-like fashion. I grinned feebly, in a way hoping that I'd get to talk to that Mr. Handsome and Perfect in a real conversation.

* * *

_Uchiha Itachi. We need to talk. Hate him, dislike him, in the middle, like him, or love him??? Why can't I_

_ make up my mind?_

* * *

It might have been a day off today, but that didn't mean that I escaped from having lunch with the Bastard Itachi. That's the bad thing about boarding schools. Teachers are allowed to give you detention, extra classes, etc. during our days off. And that means torture. Added to that, they're allowed to torture us during the weekdays, too. And that means no escape. Which absolutely sucks. But at least lunch is only at a certain time and a certain place. They have no right to torture me with anything else today.

So I can indulge on my perfectly normal day off. Well, sort of.

To sum up my day off, I usually spend it in the library, my room, or wandering around aimlessly while trying to avoid trouble or trying to start trouble. During all that boring stuff, I'm trying to avoid the bastard. But, if I count in the fact that I'm totally unlucky, it just makes my job harder. It so happens that we both like the library.

So when I made my first stop the library (which is usually empty in the mornings), it just so happened that Itachi was there.

He was standing in front of a bookshelf, with a book in his hand when I walked in. Itachi looked up and I stopped immediately in my tracks. And of course, the awkward silence comes in. He stared at me emotionlessly; I stared back at him with mixed emotions. Then, I started hoping that he couldn't read me as well as he could in the past.

It took me a while to realize that we'd be stuck in this silence if no one dared to make a move. And for once, he decided to back down on that. Either he was suddenly cowardly, or he's just challenging me to say something. It really didn't matter which one was true, I had to talk, eventually.

I opened my mouth to say something. Anything would do at this moment, but then he walked past me, not even giving me a sideways look or a backwards look. Maybe I've annoyed him enough so that he'd not want to be around me. But as I watched him disappear down the hallways, for some reason I decided that that wasn't the case.

Have I succeeded in making him hate me?

There was silence around me, and the librarian's cough broke me out of my thoughts. Once that happened, I didn't even remember what I was thinking about in the first place. A feeling of _regret _reached my heart and made me think, _No, I don't want him to hate me. _

I shook my head. No way in the world would make me feel that same way I felt about him in the past. I walked through the library, repeating my resolution in my head, trying to push any other thoughts out.

"Have you noticed?" I stopped in my tracks. It's just natural for girls to be gossiping in the library early in the morning when no one's around. But since it's the senior girls who are gossiping, I couldn't help but suppose they were talking about their god, Itachi.

"You'd be stupid to notice! He's been totally out of it! Oh, Itachi-sama, don't let that girl hurt you anymore!" A melodramatic girl whispered loudly back. Sure, that doesn't make sense, but it's true. And I could tell by the way used _that girl _in a sentence that they were talking about me.

"Deidara-kun says that he's in love, but could that seriously be true?" the first girl whispered.

"I hope not, I've been around him since the beginning of school and he's never touched a girl in his life. Let's just hope he doesn't start now – and if he does, we'll just have to hope he falls for us instead of her," the melodramatic girl went on. After that sentence was done and overwith, I left the library. I just felt that I'll come next time, late at night, where hopefully no one but the ultra-quiet librarian is hanging out there.

* * *

I made my second stop at the art room. Art was suddenly my odd calling, so why not test it a little more? You were free to use certain supplies as long as long as a teacher or responsible senior is with you. Evidently, that was my problem. Itachi was out of the question, so I had to find some other random guy or girl who I think I could trust.

That's when I heard a loud, "YEAH!" down the hallway. I turned and saw that blonde, walking down the hallway all by himself, heading towards the art room. I settled on him right away, waiting at the door innocently. Deidara stopped in his tracks and looked at me curiously, then said, "You're that girl who took my potatoes to stuff it in Itachi's face, right?"

Well, duh. I decided to nod, instead, though. A smile spread across Deidara's face. "You came here to paint and stuff, right? I saw your painting. The only problem with it is that you need a little more of a…"

"Bang?" I said before he would spit into my face and destroy my eardrums. I gave him that innocent smile again.

"Yeah, yeah, a bang, right, yeah," Deidara said, nodding. "I'll let you do what you have to do. I was going to make some art myself, too, anyways." Deidara walked in front of me into the art room. The air was the same as in art class, but the peace and quiet seemed to calm my nerves down a lot. It's easier to draw in this kind of atmosphere. Deidara made his way to that clay thing, or whatever it is, and started at work.

I decided that painting was already my forte, so I grabbed an empty canvas, an easel, and some oil paints. I had no inspiration on what to make whatsoever, but improvising is fun sometimes, too.

I closed my eyes and started to work, but then Deidara spoke. His art is a bang, like he said. It has to be noisy, doesn't it? I closed my eyes in irritation, but listened, anyway. He was, as far as I knew, one of Itachi's friends. I might be able to dig up something about my bastard of a brother.

"You know, Itachi's been blanking out on me a lot lately," Deidara talked in such a carefree fashion, probably one of the only things that I'll ever envy of the guy.

"…Yeah. I heard," I said quietly, trying to focus on the conversation and my painting at the same time. It might seem simple, but it's hard when you're trying to paint to the best of your ability.

"It's kind of obvious that he's…you know, frustrated over you or something."

My attention snapped from my painting. Yeah, it was obvious. So what? "What makes you say that?"

"He stares at you a lot, yeah…" Deidara seemed used to talking and creating a work of art at the same time. He probably comes to the art room a lot with that Sasori guy. "And once he heard that you came up for the part of Juliet, he actually volunteered to be Romeo. Now that's rare, yeah…"

"I could care less," I said, even though I knew that I couldn't care more.

"Hmm. Fine then, yeah." I saw Deidara shrug at the corner of my eye. He was probably going to drop the subject now, but I still needed to hear more. Then again, the blonde dropped a small surprise by asking what everyone else asks me all the time. "Why do you hate him so much, yeah? He's not that much of a bad person…yeah?"

I stopped painting and stared at the landscape I made up from the back of my head. It looked horrible to me; then again, I was probably trying to be modest. It wasn't done yet, of course, but I got the basic idea on the canvas. I didn't answer Deidara's question quite yet, for two reasons: I was focusing on my painting, and I was desperately trying to think of something to say back to him.

I couldn't risk saying that I didn't hate him. This guy has a mouth big enough to blab it to everyone. And once everyone knows, the story gets even crazier. Then all the girls would think that I actually like him. Which I don't. Right? But if I do say that I hate him, if I really still do like him, what would I do next? Keep torturing him? I played with my fingers for a bit. After a long while, the blonde's eyes were on me.

"Aaah. Don't worry. I won't tell anyone, yeah?"

I jerked up and looked at in inquiringly. Maybe he as this mind-reading ability, or did he just find out by the way I was hesitating and fidgeting under the pressure of the question. Whatever he thought I meant to say, he probably wasn't going to tell anyone. Deidara seemed like a trustable guy, even though he's Bastard Itachi's friend.

Deidara shot me a smile before standing up and placing his bird-shaped sculpture some place where it could dry. "Well, I'm done." He stretched and made his way to the door. "You can stay for a while. If a teacher comes in, tell them that Deidara told you that you're allowed, yeah?"

I nodded to answer his question. Deidara left the art room, humming. The one and only thing that I decided about that guy, other than he's a pretty good artist, is that he's very…odd.

I stayed in the art room for about fifteen more minutes, in the peace and quiet. My painting wasn't even close to finished, and I planned to kill time by finishing it. At least I found something that I could do that would bring my mind away from my Itachi problem.

But at that moment, the door opened, someone nearly slamming it against the wall. I jumped and scrambled for some of my paints that were flying, some of it falling onto the floor. Before I decided to clean up the mess, I looked at who came in, praying that it wasn't Itachi.

It wasn't. Instead, there stood a man with messy silver hair, golden eyes and a very pale complexion. At first sight I assumed he was Kakashi, but that multi-tasking sensei always wears his mask, doesn't have golden eyes, and his hair is a lot spikier. I squinted at the man, beginning to wonder where I saw that face before.

"Uh…I'm sorry, but…" I began to stutter, feeling my legs give out under me. He had a familiar aura, some sort of aura that freaked me out to no ends.

"I'm the new…art teacher." His voice was familiar, too, but I couldn't point out where I heard it before. First, I was relieved that we might've finally found a decent teacher, and then I was afraid that this teacher might be a bit…more whacked in the head than others.

"Oh. Well, welcome to the school then." My voice could easily be categorized as 'uneasy'. I grabbed some paper towels and tried to wipe off the paint from the floor. That weird new sensei was standing right behind me. Unfortunately for me, I don't have eyes on the back of my head. I tried my best to focus on the paint-covered ground, but it's hard when someone like that is right behind you.

The next thing I knew, he grabbed my hair and pulled me up against the wall. I nearly cried out from the pain of hair nearly being pulled from my head. His face was so close to mine that I finally recognized who he really was. "O-Orochimaru…!" He had his hand around my throat, robbing me of air. I knew it was too good to be true that he was sacked so easily.

"Hmm. I can't believe that you forgot me so easily," His voice was that same, with that pedophilic tone.

I opened my mouth to say something, but I had no air, or strength, left to do anything. It was nearing lunch time, too. And that meant that if I didn't get to lunch soon, I'll get even more detention. And that meant that I'd be stuck with Mr. Perfect-and-Handsome again.

Those thoughts fueled me enough to give me strength to fight back a little bit more. I kicked at his chest, but that didn't help since one of his grimy hands grabbed my leg. And in this case, it's bad, since Orochimaru's forte is clearly rape. My hands were busy clawing at the one wrapped around my neck, and for once I was glad I had longer nails. Blood dripped down from his hand, but Orochimaru kept his hand there, as if he was used to people trying to destroy his perverted hands.

I tried to break my leg free from his hand, but it didn't work at all. The last thing that I needed was for him to find out that I'm really a boy. If that hand went any higher, my secret would be blown completely.

Orochimaru let go of my neck, but then pinned both of my hands to the wall with just one of his own hands. I felt that slimy tongue against my already sore neck, which made me feel even worse. To make everything even worse, his tongue was, like, ten times longer than a usual human's.

Then the door opened again. I looked up, hoping for a teacher.

Itachi stood at the door, staring at the scene and awkward position with that same impassiveness that annoyed me all the time. I was able to croak out something that would possibly make him realize that I needed to get out of the predicament. "Help!"

"Oh, shut up!" I felt Orochimaru's fist connect with my cheek. Tears reached my eyes immediately from the movement. I felt this pain before, and I swore to myself that I wouldn't feel it again. I closed my eyes, expecting another blow, until I heard noises of someone beating up someone else.

"You can open your eyes, now." It was a different voice, a voice that I never heard in a long while. The voice that disappeared such a long time ago.

I didn't open my eyes. Instead, I let the tears flow out. I buried my face into that someone's chest, not caring who he was – because I missed him so much. I heard him inhale in surprise. Then, at the same time, he exhaled and wrapped his arms around me, trying to calm my shaking body.

We stayed there for a while, just the mysterious guy and me. The only thing I heard was his heartbeat, our breathing, and the clock ticking away the time we had left together. The tears stopped a long time ago, but I refused to open my eyes to see the real person that was holding me. I knew who it was. I just didn't want to believe it.

Then again, I finally realized that I was going to be late for lunch. I opened my eyes and ran out the door as fast as I could, because I didn't want to see his face.

* * *

It turned out Itachi was late to lunch, and not me. I didn't even bother to ask why, because that would mean talking to him and failing at giving him the silent treatment.

I got my lunch and sat down, just to realize that he didn't bother to even get lunch. I wasn't hungry, either, even though I skipped off on breakfast this morning. Maybe I should just stop getting food when I'm not hungry and not waste the food.

I sat down and ate a little bit of the salad that was given to me. Only five minutes of silence passed when he spoke.

"You know…I had a little brother." He was unusually quiet, and it was his turn to avoid my gaze. Itachi didn't have to talk about this, but he wanted to, apparently. I tried to keep on focusing on my food, though I was eager to hear what he would say next. Itachi went on with what he was going to say, as if he wanted to talk about it. "But I have no clue where he is or what he's doing now."

"…Oh." That was the one and only thing that I thought I could say for this kind of discussion. I knew that him telling me this probably told me that he knew who I really was, but if he really did he wouldn't be telling me this. So I settled on just listening.

At my reaction, Itachi let out a smirk. "I really shouldn't be talking about this, should I? Well, then..."

He pushed an unruly dark strand of his silky long hair out of the way of his unique eyes with one deft sweep of his enticing pale and slender fingers. I shook my head at that sentence. My past adoration for him was growing again, so that would mean me thinking too highly of him, and that action would apparently bring my downfall in my high school life, allowing him to take complete control of my actions and limit me of my freedom and free will.

Man, I'm suddenly thinking like a babbling smart-ass with no one better to talk to other than myself, because there's no one better to trust than yourself, right?

The first part of the paragraph above repeated here. I'm losing patience for myself and I should seriously get back to the topic at hand.

"Well then, what?" I asked, pushing the tray to the side. I didn't have much of an appetite at all, and ever since he initiated the conversation I lost the rest of my appetite. At this rate, I'd be as skinny as Ino. I made a silent vow to eat a little more.

"Have you...ever made a mistake that could never be corrected?" Itachi's voice was strained and begging for an answer. He was trying to hold back his emotions – that was what I read from his eyes and hesitant movements.

And about his question, I knew right away that he wanted me to answer truthfully and to think about it thoroughly. Whenever someone hears the word 'mistake', especially during school years, they think about a test or something like that. You could correct your mistake on the paper by sneaking into the teacher's office and crossing out your wrong answer and putting down the right answer in its place. You could correct yourself by telling yourself the right answer.

That part was simple. But there's another mistake that we like to call 'actions' and 'words'. The problem with them is that once something is done, it's done. There's no reset button on life, no matter how much I yearn for an invention like that.

I just ridiculed at the question when I thought about that. Of course, everyone has made a mistake that they could never be corrected. So, what the hell was the point in answering it?

No point.

But, knowing the weird bastard that I'm dealing with right now, he's obviously talking about that incident that he caused years ago, the night before he ran away.

Itachi was staring at me intently now, though his eyes refused to meet mine. He was waiting for my answer, and I decided to give him a straight-forward, self-explanatory, mind-speaking answer.

"Yes, I have. Even stupid things that I've done can't ever be corrected. Everyone's made a mistake like that before, so what's the point in asking?" Yes. Exactly what was on my mind back in mind world.

Itachi didn't seem surprised by my answer, as if he knew I was going to say that. And that, he probably did. "Yeah, sure, whatever…"

"Whatever? It was your question," I frowned, just taking a sip from the water. I stuck out my tongue when I found out it was lukewarm. I'm only good with cold water, and warm water just gives me a stomach ache. Itachi gave out a small smile, which disappeared in less than one second. It looked like he wasn't going to say anything for the rest of the day. I had to keep him talking, somehow. "You know…You can talk if you want."

Itachi looked at me with slight surprise. I decided to stop there and not say anything else. Knowing my unruly mouth, I was going to say something unnecessary that would blow my cover completely.

He stayed silent for the rest of the lunch. Kakashi and Gai took turns passing us, and that aggravated me in some way. We weren't doing anything wrong and sticking me in the same table as him was torture enough, but for once, I wanted the silence and the alone time with him.

Eventually, we were allowed to leave lunch. Itachi gave me a smirk, apparently back to his old, annoying self again. "See you later, you flat-chested freak." He started to walk away.

The insult (which I didn't really care for) took one second to sink in before I decided I should pounce on him so that it'd look like I'm an actual girl. I ran over to him and raised my hand to give him a replay of that first slap, but this time, he was faster than me.

He grabbed my wrist. I froze, he froze. I stared at where our skin was connected for the longest time it has been for a long time. A real smile actually played on his face, and I actually saw it for more than one second. My unruly muscles that controlled my facial expressions gave him a smile back.

But then his rare grin disappeared and he let go of my hand. He whispered to me in a quiet and tired tone, "…See you later." Then he seemed to disappear out of my view, leaving me in an empty lunch room. The sound of the lunch ladies laughing loudly broke me out of my daze, causing me to realize that I was standing on that spot for ten minutes.

Now this was one incident that I hoped would stay just between the two of us.

* * *

_Deidara. Trustable guy? Maybe._

_Uchiha Itachi. …Uhh…Yeah…Maybe, just maybe…I love you again.

* * *

_

Your welcome to you all!!! Thank you for reading and hope you enjoy!

If you're a manga reader, Itachi fans like me are having a hard time with the 'OMG THIS IS NOT HAPPENING!' moment. I've been zoning out at the name 'Itachi' lately, but I knew I had to update so I did! Again, thanks for all your patience!

**Hugs! - **I'll give the person who guesses why Sasuke hates Itachi a virtual hug. Seriously. I personally think that it's a bit obvious by now, but who am I to judge? I'm just the freakin' writer. So…guess, people, guess!!!

My New Year's Resolution is to write better! Please review, too!


	6. Of Jealousy And Dances

Thank you all for your motivating reviews!!! Time to try and write better for you all and finally fulfill one of my New Year's Resolutions…I usually make an excuse by saying, "My resolution is to make a resolution next year!!!" Yeah.

Sorry for the long wait on the update. The first idea I had for this chapter was crap, so I had to make one up on the back of my head, and then that was suckish because I had absolutely no real ideas on that one, so I skipped over this useless chapter and went on with my life. Sorry!!!

**Of Jealousy and Dances**

The last time Itachi ran away wasn't his first time. He had so many attempts to just disappear from the household; it made me wonder if he was tired of being with me. Even when he told me that everything was going to be okay, he still tried.

I don't even know why. Whenever my parents catch him in the act, he gets a good scolding, and then he stomps into _my _room for refuge. Once that happens, I always go into my room to try and placate him. We'd stay in my room for at least two hours, either talking or just enjoying each other's company.

Eventually, I'd always fall asleep. Before that, I would ask him to not leave. He'd kiss me gently promise, and let me sleep. And then I wake up, no matter how short or long my rest was, he wouldn't be there.

Even though I knew he'd still be in the house, I'd hug my knees and start crying, because no matter how I try, he would always leave. Always.

Sooner or later, someone hears me crying. It's usually my mother. She would come in, trying to soothe me. She would stay at my side until I'd calm down. If it's my father, he'd just tell me to shut up. And that usually makes it worse.

At times, it would be Itachi. He would wrap his arms around me the way a brother would, but he would talk to me the way a lover would. I'd beg for him not to leave again. Still, he never replied. He just kept whispering to me, "It's alright now, it's alright now." We'd stay like that until I would fall asleep again.

And when I wake up then, he'd either be there or not. If he's not there, I'd go down stairs and look for him frantically. If he's there, we'd spend the rest of the day together, not worrying about our parents, not thinking of the future, the past…just the present. Just each other.

And of, course, that's all changed now.

* * *

You know, I just realized that the majority of the kids in this school are homosexual or bisexual? Even if I was observing everyone around me, I hadn't realized it until now. Maybe all the ukes in gay relationships look so feminine that I think that they're all girls.

Then again, I'm probably an uke who is really feminine, because everyone actually thinks that I'm a girl.

Shocker.

* * *

We had our Romeo and Juliet play practice yet again. I didn't really understand what half the scene really meant, but I pretended to say it with meaning and passion, or whatever. Itachi acted completely normal, but he seemed a bit quieter to me. I decided not to think about it, because thinking about that elusive bastard probably causes my mind to melt.

And I don't know if my mind melts in a good way or a bad way, but I might as well keep it whole, thank you very much.

Kakashi called for a break, and I expected Itachi to approach me and start spewing out some smart remarks about anything he can find wrong about me like he usually does, but I didn't get anything. I stood there; blanking out, for a second, and Itachi just ran his slender hand through his dark locks and left the stage with Deidara following him with a cheesy smile.

"Kari-chan? Hey? You're blanking out on me!"

"Stop!" I exclaimed, grabbing Sakura's hand before she waved it in front of my line of view. Behind Sakura, Ino shot me a glare. Clearly she was following my gaze and noticed that I was watching Itachi. Maybe I should be a bit more careful. Knowing that Ino girl, she's probably going to spread rumours that I love Uchiha Itachi.

That may or may not be true. I still hadn't figured out my feelings. So, I came up with a lie as I walked off the stage with Sakura and Naruto at my side.

_I stare at people a lot. Human beings fascinate me in ways that are so mesmerizing. Some people's movements are rough, reckless and just plain ugly, but others are striking and deft. The way someone moves might give you access to their minds. I'm considering a career as a psychologist so I have to know these things. Please stop staring at me like I'm a liar in love, because I am just staring at Uchiha Itachi because his movements are just interesting in a very inimitable way. _

Yep. Perfect.

But I still can't get over the fact that Uchiha Itachi isn't amused by me anymore. Am I boring all of a sudden? Does he realize that I'm (sort of) drooling over him as much as all of the other girls in school? Because if he figures that, he'll definitely mark me as boring and place me in the same category as those girls (or guys).

It's either that, or he found someone else. Someone better than _me _when it comes to getting Itachi's attention. Which by the way, I absolutely rule at. And if someone's seriously better than me, that must be saying something.

* * *

You know another suckish thing? Our basketball coach, Mitarashi Anko-sensei, was out on vacation for a while after the try-outs for the team, so we had to hold off on our practices. And a game is coming very soon, so I think that we might really stink.

Then again, this school is known for its naturally talented students, so we might be in luck. Besides, I am a boy who does exceptionally well in male standards, so I wonder how I would do in female standards. No offense, females out there, but male standards are a bit higher than that of the female species.

"Get running, girls! We're going to catch up, and that means practice everyday after school! That's right; don't moan at me, that's just wasting air that you should be using on running! Come on; don't make me run after you with a flamethrower!!!"

I rolled my eyes. A mile is about twenty-five laps around our gym, and we were almost nearing twenty already. I wasn't counting, TenTen was. She was motivated completely, almost in a Lee-like style.

"Being friends with Lee has benefits in stuff like this," TenTen said to me as she ran at my side. She was really good, too. I was planning on being paced, not pacing. At that point, I decided to just sprint the rest of it out, in hope of having the lap-running end soon. It's a reckless move, but people are allowed to show off every once and a while, right?

Just when I was about to give the running thing my all, I heard Anko-sensei's whistle bounce off the walls. It sounded like she blew it right next to my ear – and apparently all the other girls felt the same way. We all exchange looks and she let us take a drink of water and sit down as she explained some things.

As we were taking drinks from the amazingly refreshing water fountain, that red haired guy who I think is Sasori ran in and said something to Anko-sensei. Some girls overheard it, and started squealing immediately. I rolled my eyes, because there was probably a few words that would cause them to squeal like that. I'll just list two.

Itachi or Dance.

Thank the heavens, because in this case, it was dance.

And by the way, I am not so thankful about that.

* * *

Guess what was the first thing that happened to me as I approached my dorm room? Sakura bombarded me with squeals and questions, of course. She apparently heard the news about the dance from Ino, and she ran off to find me, her new 'best friend'. It figures that girls basically relate to girls. I wonder what would happen if she found out if I'm really a guy….

That's the reason I'm not telling her. Her reaction is categorically the one reaction that I want to see the most. But I'm just afraid that she might think of it the wrong way. Like she'll say, "So…The reason we related to each other so much is because…we're meant to be with each other!!!" And, like any other weird girl would do, she would ignore my protests and start screaming out to the world that we're dating, when we're really not.

Besides, we don't relate at all.

But even if I do say that, she'll say, "Opposites attract!" And continue on screaming out to the world that we're together.

So…yeah. Maybe right away, before she even says anything to me, I'll make it as clear as clear as can get that I don't like her and that I only talked to her because she's a good source of information.

But guess what happens when she hears that? She'll possibly…definitely break down into tears and create the next ocean – Sakura Ocean. And then that ocean will be mad at me and drown me in her sorrows. And as I slowly fall to the depths of the ocean, I'll hear her crying. Then, either I'll be saved by a knight in shining armor, or I'll die there.

This is the kind of result that people get if they have a big imagination.

Back to the subject at hand.

"Kari-chan, did you hear? About the dance?" Kyaa. "I can't believe it! I'm so excited!" Kyaa. "Are you going with someone? I really hope someone like…" I glared at her. "That guy you hate except with a better personality would ask me out!!!" Kyaa. At least Sakura knew when to stop.

"Yes, I heard about the dance. I believe it, and I'm not so excited. No, I'm not going with someone, and you seriously don't want to go with…_him. _I'm going to bed, now, okay? Bye." I sort of slammed the door, when I didn't want to. I think that Sakura took in the impression that I was angry, but I really wasn't. I was just…aggravated.

But really, I had no clue why.

* * *

_Mitarashi Anko. She is a harsh coach. No wonder Konoha Boarding School's girl's basketball team is so good._

_Dance. I hate dance. Dance hates me. Let's get together and ruin it! In my dreams._

* * *

And, naturally, the highlight of today was the talk of who's going with whom in the dance. And, naturally, I chose not to go with anyone. Still, naturally, many people still asked me to the dance. And, since I chose not to go with anyone, I said no. And, since everyone gets a bit heartbroken after being turned down, those boys inched away.

The highlight for me that day was, surprisingly and thankfully, not about Itachi. I rejoiced in my mind (and sulked in a dark, forsaken corner of my mind) when Itachi-bastard ignored me for the entire day. Though, I did wonder why he was trying to stay away from me. Ah, well. The highlight for today was when Naruto _still _tried to ask me out to the dance.

He seemed kind of desperate.

"Hikari-chan (Sasuke)!!! Please go to the dance with me!!!" He stared at me with these puppy dog eyes, which were, in a way, sort of strange.

I hesitated because the puppy dog eyes were still freaking me out. The answer was clear, and we both knew it. "No, Naruto. _And don't call me by my name."_ Naruto blinked, and I swear I saw tears in his receding puppy dog eyes. He nodded and sulked away, Kiba laughing hysterically while trailing after his broken-hearted best friend.

Lunch time had to come. And now, lunch time means Itachi. And for now, Itachi means the cold shoulder. Have I ever told you how much I hate getting the cold shoulder? Giving it is fine, but getting it is horrible. Like how you don't like someone and you really enjoy giving a terrible present to them. But you, yourself, think that receiving an awful present isn't so fun.

I was pretty happy until lunch. Itachi had downed my mood, though. He had this depressing aura that told me clearly, _be depressed. _And so, I did as the aura said.

I forced myself to talk to him once my body at least tried to rebel against the strong aura that was emanating from my older brother. It took almost the entire lunchtime for me to figure out a good topic of conversation. The aura held me down. You can tell that I hate the aura. And guess which topic I chose to talk about.

"Uhh…So are you going with anyone for the dance?"

I resisted the temptation to slap myself.

Itachi blinked, probably shocked that someone as crowd-defying as me would bring up the type of chat that the crowd that I defy would originally bring up. He did answer me, which calmed my nerves slightly.

"Yeah."

The fact that he actually answered calmed me. The answer itself just caused a storm to rip up my heart and brain. I clenched my fist under the table, and gladly, Itachi didn't notice that I was getting even more exasperated. Him, going with someone else? Who in the world could it be?

Who could woo Uchiha Itachi?

Destiny disregarded my pleads to keep the conversation going. I was about to ask who it was (so I could kill them), but he stood up and left, possibly deciding that he is finally far too superior to be seen with the likes of me. And at that moment, I had to admit, that decision was true. 

I mean, who would want to be with a fraught, psycho, over-his-head, freak like me?

* * *

The dance came up really quickly. It's on the usual Saturday, and it's in our gym. Luckily for us, our gym doesn't smell like dirty socks. The janitor keeps it in tip-top taut shape. You gotta love your janitor. If it weren't for him, we'd all have schools with messes that no one would want to touch.

Hooray, Janitors, I suppose.

It wasn't like prom, with formal clothes and stuff. It was basically like; wear a skirt, and not a dress. And that sent a problem for me. I never even tried to wear a skirt before, much less a dress, since I'm really a guy. Dress pants would've worked, except they were too tight for comfort, and anyone could tell that I'm really a guy if I wore those. People might get suspicious of me not wearing a skirt or anything that resembles 'la falda', so…

Let's just say I was forced to, okay?

And trust me, it was sort of comfortable. And right now, you're staring at me like I'm a total weirdo (which I believe I am), and thinking SasUKE again. I really hate my parents. It's like they knew I was going to become an uke, so they put the word uke into my name.

But really, it's…comfortable. I'm just lucky people left me alone for the entire dance. Maybe because I set an aura around myself, telling people to get away. I have no idea exactly how I expressed myself by my aura, but I think that I showed them that I was gloomy, or in a party-pooper mood. People seemed a little disappointed around me. Maybe it's because they were looking forward to seeing me in party mode.

I personally don't think I have much of a party mode.

There was a huge downer to the party, though. Of course, it had to have something about Itachi. Everyone thought that the perfect Uchiha would do like he usually does – not go to the dance at all (which is what I planned to do in the first place, but I needed to get at least a scoop of the fun!). Instead, this year, he actually went with someone.

Shocker to all females, 'cause it was Deidara.

The upside to that was that Itachi really didn't seem too happy about it, either. Deidara was all chipper, as usual. All the girls started to hope that the blonde forced Itachi into it, but Deidara said otherwise. And Itachi just stayed silent.

At that point, I decided that I'd rather not be placed in the same category as Itachi is in right now (which would be a party pooper), so I danced around with the group. I've really got to ask: why bring a date, anyway? There's no point. Half the people I see here came with their dates and left with their friends.

But back to my real point that gave me a reason to even mention this worthless dance in the first place…

Itachi's going out with Deidara???

* * *

_Uchiha Itachi. Are you joking???_

_Deidara. Don't make me mark you my worst enemy…_

_Dance Description._

_Chouji ate all of the food, causing hungry late people to go nuts because there was no food left. Chouji left the cafeteria with food all over him._

_The chaperones who were doing a horrible job at chaperoning finally found where a lot of the couples went. Under the bleachers. The chaperones were stupid enough to let them off with a warning, but then they spent the rest of the dance chasing the missing couples around the school again._

_Something went wrong with the DJ. Everyone says that he went drinking before he went to the party, because he started harassing some of the junior girls. Temari beat him up and got detention and the teachers wouldn't even listen to our story about the pervy drunkard. The drunkard recovered from getting beat up, but his drunkardness was still there, and he abandoned his post as the DJ and kept sexually harassing the poor junior girls._

_Since the DJ abandoned his DJ post, we had to have amateur DJs do it. The only person who had the ability to manage the hi-tech DJ stand or whatever was Gai-sensei and Lee, who ended up playing stupid music that everyone hated. Macho, macho man…I wanna be a macho man. Yeah. Like that. So, we told Gai and Lee that they were having an amateur wrestling contest out of town, and whoever won could become a pro wrestler. They actually disappeared after that prevarication. _

_Because we had no one else to take up the name of the DJ, we had to do karaoke for the rest of the night. Have I mentioned before that a lot of the people in this school are horrible singers who don't realize how horrible they are? Let's take my friend the Ino-bitch for example. Ino plus Fergie equals atrocious music. No offense to Fergie. Ino's the one who makes it sound terrible.(Inolicious. What. The. Fuck.) And we had to endure it, because she was among the only ones who got the guts to go up on stage. And those only ones were the ones who were horrible singers who don't realize how horrible they are. _

_And there's more. Akamaru somehow got loose, and some chaperones abandoned the task of looking for the missing couples chased Akamaru, as well. Kiba abandoned us for his little annoying dog, who spent all of his days running in-between people's legs. Kiba's a natural idiot, so he followed Akamaru's exact tracks, instead of trying to find away to block him off. To put it in simpler terms, Kiba ran in-between people's legs. I don't know if Akamaru knows how to get a boy in trouble, but Kiba got detention for being a complete pervert._

_At this point, most of the chaperones were too busy over the other problems that the rest of us could do anything that we wanted. While Deidara was busy discovering the art of music at the DJ stand (Deidara was trying to get on real music), a bunch of girls surrounded Itachi. You could hear 'Why, Itachi?', 'Kyaa! I touched him!' and 'I love you!!!' from across the gym. You could also hear some sounds of Itachi's protests to get them off of him. I don't know exactly how it happened, but I think those girls were trying to strip him. I'm serious. And they actually succeeded. They got his shirt off. Now…Yeah. I have to admit, he has grown up since I last saw him, but it just made all the other guys in the room get a little uncomfortable. The girls were ripping his shirt to shreds, and Itachi cursed rather loudly before leaving the gym, shirtless._

_Deidara finally learned the art of music, and he definitely made it a bang. A bit too much of a bang. He raised the volume up to maximum, and we all yelled at him to turn it down. He tried, and failed miserably, because he accidentally ripped the knob off and left us with two choices, ultimately loud music or no music at all. And it was a dance, for crying out loud. I don't know why we stuck with ultimately loud music, but it was decided democratically. Am I the only male with ultra-sensitive ears, because all of the boys decided on ultimately loud music. I voted with the girls. But there were more boys than girls at the party at the moment. I swear, we were deafened. _

_The chaperones came back from their search. Deidara refused to turn the music off, which gave him detention, too. The chaperones couldn't turn it off, which didn't make sense to me because they could just pull the plug. But, no, they're too scared that they might get an electric shock. They ended up destroying the expensive DJ set. And, our original DJ just had to come back to finish his unfinished job. He got over his drunkardness, but I think he got drunk again. Over anger. He screamed very loudly, yelled that the school owed him a new DJ set, displayed a very colorful side of language, and showed the chaperones hell. That's when the police came in, bringing the chaperones to the hospital and jailing the DJ guy for beating people up and sexual harassment. I also heard that he's going to be attending anger management. _

_And thus, our party comes to a close._

_And an after note: the janitor fell ill. The teachers are currently looking for non-tired students who are up to the job to cleaning up the gym. No one's taking up the task, and I swear, the teachers will be giving out free homework passes at this rate, because they don't want to clean up that mess that we call a gym ourselves._

* * *

"That party was so TIRING!" Sakura stayed at my room that day. We were both too tired to do anything, so we just hung out there, resting ourselves up for the crazy Monday that was coming up for us. And her exclamation was so true. Maybe that party just proves my point about this school. Konoha Boarding School is the most arbitrary school I've ever heard of, been to, or whatever. My knowledge of schools is very minimal, so don't trust my word. It's just the result that you get from what I wrote in my notebook last night.

Someone knocked on the door.

"Get it," I demand.

"You do it, I'm too exhausted to."

"You're the visitor, get it."

"You're the one who's getting visited right now, so you get it."

Sakura really comes up with a good defensive line, now doesn't she? I reluctantly stood up and opened the door. Temari stood there, the same look of fatigue on her face, even though she missed out on half of it because she got kicked out of the party when she beat up that DJ. Temari was holding a bag filled with letters, from the advice column that I'm doing.

You completely forgot about that one, huh? Well, it really didn't have much of a detailed thing right now, but if you seriously want details, here.

_A good friend of mine didn't make a part in our school play, and he's really obsessing over depression. I really don't know what to do. I'm worried about him, and he keeps everyone in rooms adjacent to him awake at night from his 'tears of youth'. I want to help him. What should I do?_

_Totally Troubled_

Yeah. Now who do you think that was? My answer? Doesn't matter. Lee got over it, anyway.

"Hikari-chan (Sasuke)!" Naruto and Kiba appear behind Temari. Temari waves good bye and tells me good luck, because a lot of people had problems because of the dance. Kiba made a remark about how awesome it was when Temari beat up the DJ. Temari says that she'll never go out with Kiba and leaves.

"Geez, that wasn't my intention, anyway," Kiba muttered.

"Kari-chan, 'bye," Sakura suddenly said, leaving the room. She had some issues with Kiba, because of the running in-between people's legs problem. Kiba accidentally ran in-between Sakura's legs at least ten times.

"Wow. What's her problem?" Kiba said. I rolled my eyes and let them in. At least I could let my guard down when I'm with those two. Both of them plopped down on my bed as I ripped open letter by letter. Kiba and Naruto try to help me with advice column problems, but they both really insensitive, especially when it comes certain types of relationships, if you know what I mean.

The one and only letter that seriously caught my undivided attention was this one.

_Hey, yeah. I'll just get right to the point. My best friend asked me out to the dance, yeah. And he's been acting kind of strange before that, yeah. I think he likes this one girl, but he doesn't want to admit it, so he asked me out, yeah. Somehow I need to approach this elusive guy and tell him to set things straight instead of lying to himself and me, yeah. So…help?_

_Art-Plus-Moi-Equals-Bang_

"Let me see that." Naruto, being his picky self, grabbed the letter of my suddenly clammy grasp. He read it rather quickly for being a guy with a fifth grade drop out's reading level. "Oh-ho!" Naruto cried out, grinning from ear to ear in that inexplicably annoying way.

Kiba read it even fast than Naruto, because heh as a sixth grade drop out's reading level.

"Whoa, we've got someone who's after our girl!" Glare. "Boy."

"Give me that," I snapped, snatching the paper from his dog shit smelling, grimy hands. "What do you mean by 'our' in that last sentence, anyway?" I demanded under my breath, not really wanting an answer, anyway.

It was crystal clear that the letter pleading for advice was Deidara. The evidence was the 'yeahs' and the nickname. I couldn't help but wonder about the said best friend, though. The letter was dated right after the dance, and the last person anybody saw Deidara go out with was Itachi. As far as my knowledge goes about Deidara, he's probably good friends with my big bastard of a big brother. And yeah, my brother is elusive most of the time.

He likes this one girl. That sentence kind of made my hopes soar up and touch the sky, but not quite. I didn't want to get my hopes too high. I didn't want to jump to a conclusion and in the end get shot down because my first guess was wrong.

But it was scientifically proven that your first guess is usually the right answer.

"Why so silent, Sasuke?" Kiba asked with excited look on his face. "It's so obvious. Itachi's in love with you!!!"

"But think about it, Kiba," Naruto broke in. Both of us straightened up and looked at the spiky-haired blonde. Think about it. Like you ever do that. Our expressions expressed that completely. Naruto interpreted them with no difficulty. "I can think. Both of you just don't at certain times! Aren't you both brothers?"

"…Oh, yeah…What're you going to do about that?" Kiba inquired me. I glared at both of them, and next thing both of them knew, their sorry asses were sitting right in front of my dorm doorway. I shut the door on them without a word. Last thing I needed was the both of them finding out that I might be in love with my brother.

Thank the Lord for privacy. I turned to my laptop and decided to see if my thoughts would come to me if I tried to type it all down on the computer.

_To Art-Plus-Moi-Equals-Bang,_

_You know, it would really help if you could've told me your best friend's day-to-day behaviour. I guess I'll just have to improvise with the two things that I can infer from your letter:_

_He's mysterious. He probably doesn't want to be known by anyone, including you, his best friend. So naturally, he won't admit his true feelings for anyone. You said that he's lying to himself. Lying to himself is a bit harsh in my terms, so I'll just say that he just doesn't want to admit anything that could slow him down, or reveal himself. And that just brings me back to the 'He probably doesn't want to be known by anyone' again. _

_As far as my own knowledge goes, you have to contradict his subtleness with straightforwardness. Eventually, he'll be forced to tell you. You might not believe me, but it works. If he doesn't tell me again…okay?_

Horrible advice, if you ask me. Oh well. I really don't care about the advice part. The letter freaked me out completely. I mean…

Is Itachi in love with me, again?

Or is it that he's in love with the girl me, and when he finds out that I'm really his younger brother he'll hate me to the ends of the earth?

* * *

Finally! So sorry for the long update and I said I'll write better! Oh well…Hope you enjoyed! Review and thanks for reading! Don't just favorite it or alert it! Review! Review! Shut me up!

**From Anonymous Fans Please Read: **Yes, the possibilities of me having a sequel to From Anonymous is growing. I've got the basic idea of the story, and possibly, _possibly, _the sequel will begin after I finish this fic!!!

Again, review!


	7. Stupid Janitors

Again, sorry for the long wait for the update! This time of year is, like, busy for our school. So…yeah. I guess my personal life doesn't matter at the moment. On to the story!!!!

**Stupid Janitor**

Our parents never knew about our relationship. If they did, they'd chew us both out for it and forbid us from speaking to one another. My father eventually found it suspicious that we were hanging out a lot together, but luckily my mom convinced him that we were sharing a very strong brotherly love.

Brotherly love, my ass. Itachi never treated me as a brother. I think he had incestuous thoughts about me ever since I was at least five years old, for some very stupid reason. It started showing when I was seven.

I remember the first day that he 'initiated' our relationship as clearly as you would remember what happened in the last second in your life. Our parents both out. They trusted an eleven-year-old and a seven-year-old alone in the house. Itachi was mature enough, that was possibly why.

I don't know how, but Itachi somehow got into my locked bedroom. He had a somewhat sinister smile, but he kept his eyes, which were unusually gentle that day. I was surprised that someone like him even deigned himself to come into my messy room. Itachi paid no attention to the pigsty that was my room, and came right for me, who sat on the bed that was in the middle of the pigsty.

"Nii-san, what're you doing here?" I inched away from him and sat at the very edge of the bed. I was always careful around him, because to me, his mind was too much of an enigma. You can't expect Itachi to do anything; you can't expect him not to do anything. He just does whatever he wants. And whatever he wants always happens to be the last thing you expect him, or anyone, to do.

Of course, those rules that were etched in Itachi's thoughts and actions applied to this moment. The last thing you'd expect any brother to do is to kiss his younger brother. The last thing you expect Itachi to do is to kiss _anyone. _The last person you'd expect Itachi to kiss would, typically, be me.

* * *

The whistle blew loudly in my ear yet again. "Time is up!" The game is over. TenTen shot me a smile, mouthing the words 'We won!' We walked over and shook hands with the other team that were from Suna.

Hell, yeah, we won. We had basketball practice since for everyday sever since Anko came back, just because she wanted to make sure we were in tip-top shape for the next ten thousand games we were going to have to play. And since we're talking about Anko-sensei, we're talking about practice that's similar to Gai-sensei's training. Gai-sensei's training is torture for everyone except for Lee. The only difference between Anko and Gai is that Anko's training is deliberate. As in, she wants to torture you. Gai-sensei doesn't realize the torture.

Back to the game. Well, the end of the game.

"Nice job!" Sakura yelled immediately once we got off of the gym and into the locker rooms. Then she immediately jumped off of me. "Eww, you're all sweaty!!"

I shot her a grin. "Well, that's what we get, now isn't it?" I was in a good mood because we won. But the thought of that letter from Deidara I received yesterday was still bugging me, as usual. Itachi stopped avoiding me completely and started talking to me again. The only bad thing about it is that I don't have lunchtime detention with him, so that gives me less free opportunities to actually talk and get it straight.

Sakura waited outside of the locker room for me to get a shower and get changed out of the red basketball uniform. I think I heard a squeal that was definitely hers, but I pushed out the thought that Itachi or someone like him would be talking to her, because…I personally think that that's impossible.

"Hey, Kyoku-chan," TenTen said after she got finished refreshing herself in the shower. TenTen was really the reason that we won, and I was probably just her back-up (and I really plan to be the MVP in the next game). TenTen slung her arm around my shoulder in a playful manner, obviously still ecstatic that we won. "You know, the weirdest person was-"

"Kari-chan!" Sakura's loud voice cut through TenTen's sentence, and the remnants of her cry bounced back and forth through the halls.

"Uhh, talk to you later, then," I quickly said as I slipped out of TenTen's grasp. I gave the brown haired girl a backwards wave before slipping out of the door. Sakura stood there, right outside of the door, but she wasn't staring at me.

She was staring at Uchiha Itachi.

"Sakura!" I whispered to her, loudly enough for Itachi to hear me, though.

"What?"

"What the hell did you do?"

"Didn't you notice? He watched the entire game!" Sakura looked sideways to Itachi and then whispered in my ear: "Or rather, he watched _you." _

"Why the hell did-"

"He came up to me after you went to the locker rooms and asked in that sexy voice of his: Where's Hikari? I _had _to answer! Really! I mean, for once in my life those eyes were staring at me! Me! I mean…Ohmigosh, I don't even know what the hell I'm saying but…Kari-chan, you have got to talk to him! I'm serious, you two look _perfect _together!" Sakura pushed me towards Itachi and actually scurried away.

What a rare moment.

We just stood there, deciding not to even look at each other. Girls popped out of the locker room, stared at the both of us suspiciously before walking away. I could hear their whispers, saying, "I really think Itachi-senpai really liked Kyoku-kun!" I really couldn't tell whether or not they were supporting the relationship or if they were totally against the concept of us being together. The only reason that I really could think of that would make them against the relationship is because they want to be with Itachi himself.

That kind of thinking always brings us into all sorts of messes that no one can get out of without some sort of consequence. I personally don't think anyone in this school has ever really thought about Itachi's feelings, except for the rare 'friends' that he has. Everyone in this school talks about him like he's an emotionless doll, who doesn't care what everybody else thinks about him. Okay, maybe that was partly true, but he does care what some people think of him.

I'm still not sure who the 'some people' are yet, though.

"Oi, you two!" Anko stomped over with her arms crossed and her eyes ready to give the last two students left in the gym torture. She has been absent for a while, so she doesn't know how much we (supposedly) loathe each other. And that means Anko-sensei's going to lump us both together in some impossible job. "You know the janitor's absent, right?" We nodded. "You guys got to clean this dump up, then. Do it and do it now." Anko didn't give us a chance to protest or make up excuses. She marched off.

Itachi and I exchanged looks. It would be a bad idea to not do the job that was so abruptly assigned to us, because the last thing we (allegedly) wanted was to be stuck together in detention again. And, Anko gives absolutely no mercy for detention, and another (definite) last thing that we wanted was to do extra gym exercises.

So we were forced to get to work.

* * *

"Uhh, I am _not _cleaning that up," I pointed to a pile of choked up food that someone decided to choke up on our gymnasium floors. Originally, I wouldn't care, but right now I have to act like a girl, so my true feelings are insignificant at the moment. Try to act feminine. One of the thoughts that are constantly in my head. You know, once this is all over, I'm going to keep acting feminine even though I'm really not. Now I am seriously regretting ever choosing to do this assignment.

Itachi looked up from the dirty floor. You know, it's an odd sight, Itachi cleaning up and all. To me, ever since I've known him, he seemed like a mature, yet pampered prince. I thought he would complain about this, like I always do (in my mind), but he's as compliant to his elders as ever. You can tell that I just didn't pay attention to cleaning. I was yelling at myself that I never really knew Itachi. It's either he changed, or he's always kept this side of him hidden from the world, and he suddenly decided to reveal it now.

Let's go back to the choked up food, shall we? Itachi stared at the thing for a few moments. I swear, it was alive. "Why don't we make it fair and we both clean it up?" Itachi suggested. His voice was bizarrely quiet today. Well, he is quiet, but not _shy _quiet, like he is now. I stood there, confused for a second, until it finally occurred to me to answer him.

"Yeah, fair enough…" We both left the gym and initiated our journey to the janitor's closet.

You know what I hate the most about janitor's closets? Their smallness. Their filthiness. Their tendency to lock people into their filthiness. And you know, our janitor's absent, and he leaves his keys hidden under a flower pot near an open window outside of the closet. Itachi unlocked it, and opened the door.

Yeah, our janitor's closet is pretty small. It was just big enough to fit us both, but only if we were really squished. We now ended our journey to the janitor's closet and commenced our hunt for the mop.

The janitor's job is to clean stuff up, right? Well, his own closet needs cleaning up. Things were strewn all around the ground, making it hard to walk around. It was hard enough with it's smallness! Our school is huge, and yet they can't make any more space for a stupid janitor's closet. I'm going to suggest getting a bigger janitor's closet during the next Student Council.

Itachi's thinking the same thing, I bet.

"Where's that mop?" I demanded, getting a little impatient. Itachi stayed silent and kept looking. I shot him a frown for ignoring me and continued the search. Damn, this place was even messier than my room when I was still at home. Nothing can be found, not even the wall, the floor, or even the ceiling, which is incredibly low. Our janitor must be short. I haven't seen the guy, and I don't want to, after seeing his closet.

I knelt down and scavenged through the clutter of tools that our janitor left on the ground. At that moment, I heard a whoosh of wind and a noise that everyone recognizes as the sound of a door locking.

"Shit," Itachi swore under his breath. I have to say, Itachi cursing is a rare occurrence. It's because of his calm composure and mature silence, I suppose. He seemed a bit freaked out for a split second before returning to his usual poise.

I stood up, wondering what happened. "Did…did the door lock?" That was the thing that I dreaded the most at that one, particular moment. Another thing that I really didn't want. To be classically locked in a janitor's closet with my worst enemy, my older brother. In a tiny janitor's closet, no less.

My answer was a completely calm "Yeah."

I blinked slowly, and then decided to freak out silently. I slowly inched away from him, to the corner of the room, trying to avoid any physical contact whatsoever. Itachi stayed silent and immobile while I made like an earthworm away from him. Once I settled in my safe, secure, Itachi-free corner, I heard his foot connect with the metal door. The door shook, but it didn't give way. He stared at the door, and then let out a breath. Then he kicked the door again.

"Just give it up. Everyone's resting peacefully in their beds right now. We're lucky that this place isn't a vault," I said softly. I'm just trying to be the calm one here. I can spend the night in the janitor's closet. The only part that I'm really afraid of is the fact that I have to spend the night with my older brother. And, the fact that there's a possibility in which no one can find us.

If we're lucky, Mitarashi-sensei would go on an angry rampage in search for us and find us locked in the janitor's closet. If we're lucky, she'll understand that we didn't lock ourselves in the closet on purpose, it was the open window's fault. Note that we found the key to the closet under the flower pot underneath the open window.

Why the hell didn't we close that freaking window that led us both to our nighttime doom?

Itachi gave the door one last punch. The door bounced back, angry at the senior who is almost certainly on his road to valedictorian, saying, "It's not my fault that you can get locked both inside and outside of this room. Blame the school's architect. I'm just an old door who is trying to get by with living." Itachi seemed to give up, his knuckles and feet were probably aching, though, of course, he didn't show the pain.

Does that guy enjoy pain, or is he just immune to it? Like he feels it, but he doesn't acknowledge it. Like how I thought he thought about my existence when we were still living under the same roof. Actually, we technically are living under the same roof right now, but that's not my point.

You can say that Itachi's my idol. He taught me things that I didn't want to know, and things that I wouldn't know in the first place, especially about the true nature of mankind. Their grotesqueness, basically. I didn't understand back then, and now I can barely remember those small speeches that he made to me, but every now and then I can recall something. Like that thing about people being secure when superior. Like that thing about how an act of love can bring the downfall of love.

Don't ask me why I'm thinking about these things. I'm just weird like that.

Long silence happened at this moment. I was contemplating. He was…doing something.

"What should we do now?" _Might as well instigate a conversation._

"…"

I stared at him, not expecting an answer, as usual. _He's just too quiet for my tastes sometimes. Sometimes, I just want him to let out what he's really let out his feeling and –_

"…Are you virgin?"

"Wha?"

"Sorry, that was a stupid question."

Man, that guy changes his mind really fast. The shock of that question lingered in the air as a silence begun its descent yet again. Itachi really does the last thing you expect him to do – and one of those things is ask a question about your purity.

That question sure was dangerous. Does he know who I really am?

Should I answer?

If I answer yes, would he suspect me of being Sasuke? If I answer no, will he say I'm a dork?

That's why I decided not to answer. Great compromise, because he decided to take back his inquiry anyway, so no point in answering, right?

I heard a crackle above us and the lights dimmed dramatically. Fate was really against me today. Itachi didn't seem to notice – it looked like he was having some sort of a debate in his head, like what my head is always doing. Debating. Debating. War. War. I couldn't see the uncertainty in my brother's expression, though. Somehow, I could just tell. Younger brother's intuition, that's what I think.

"You said that…you don't hate me. You said that earlier. Then why do you like treating me like you hate me?" So that's what he was debating about, huh? At least he's cutting me some slack and starting to try and start conversations that I take so much time and effort into to keep them going.

"…What about it?" Maybe that was too masculine of an answer.

"I just wanted to know…Never mind."

Like I said, he changes his mind real easily.

I shrugged, and looked away from him. His debate ensued on in his head, and I could tell clearly now. He seemed troubled – really distressed. At least I know that he didn't lock us both in here on purpose so he can make a move on me. Itachi apparently wanted to avoid me as much as possible, but now that's impossible because we're cramped in a small janitor's closet.

As you can see, I'm still mad at fate.

And fate's mad at me.

We're even.

"I don't know." I find myself speaking. _Damn, shut up! _"I just know that I don't hate you." I think I'm answering his question that I decided clearly in my head not to answer. Of course, my worst enemy, fate, chose to make my life even more miserable by taking over my body for a split second to make me talk.

_It's always somebody else's fault, isn't it_? There was this nagging voice in my head. I remember that line – Itachi always used to say that to me when I was young, and when I kept blaming other people for my mistakes and problems. You could call me naïve. You could call him a good older brother, because in the end he somehow cleaned up the mess that I made.

I pulled my legs up to my chest again; a dispute was beginning to rip my mind apart by the seams. That nagging voice continued on with those same speeches that Itachi would say to me whenever I would run to him for help, like a pampered pet. And perhaps I was a pampered pet, or a pampered prince, or whatever.

But for some reason, Itachi kept calling me a pampered _princess._

"Itachi, do you hate me, though?"

Couldn't resist.

His plan has officially backfired.

Itachi stared at nothing in particular. He kept his impassive expression, but he wasted no time answering me. So much for his plan backfiring, because I think he wanted me to ask that question. So we both could clear things up. So we both could decide if we're going to go through with this stupid chain of stupid events that led up to this stupid janitor's closet event.

Then again, this is only my own thinking.

"No."

I rejoiced.

"…I only treated you like that because…never mind," I quietly said. As you can see, the conversation we're both trying to fire up isn't going anywhere. We both knew that we _someone _had to give in to their feelings, but at that time, neither of us wanted to surrender. I got that stubbornness from him. He had that stubbornness ever since he was born. It's probably in the Uchiha blood. Never lose a battle that you know you can win.

At this point, we're both uncertain who can win, so I don't know if that rule matters anymore.

All that was clear is that we're both stubborn idiots. I admit that. He probably admits that in his head from time to time, too.

"Hn. Just tell me."

"Then you tell me why you keep bugging me."

"…Hn."

"Humph."

We're _still _not getting anywhere.

* * *

It was about an hour into our confinement in the janitor's closet when we started talking to each other again. Instead of a heated talk, we unconsciously made a peace treaty until we got out of the place. Itachi still stayed against the door (a dangerous place to stay, because if the door opened he'll fall backwards…Suit himself, I guess), and I stayed against the wall opposite of him.

And I don't know how, but the conversation shifted to the topic called Itachi's little brother.

And I don't know how, but for some reason _I _brought up that topic called Itachi's little brother.

"You mentioned before that you had a younger brother, right?" Mental slap. Stupid me. Baka. Baka. Baka. Baka. I brought one of my hands over to my wrist and I pinched myself – hard. I'm ultimately angry at myself, and yet part of me still wants to talk about this forbidden subject.

But even before I mentally slapped myself, called myself and idiot and pinched myself as hard as possible, I knew the reason why that defiant part of me wished to talk about Uchiha Sasuke was because I wanted to know how he really felt about me. Was he guilty because of what he did to me, or did he not feel any remorse whatsoever? Did he think of me like I thought of him, or was I just a toy?

_If I was a toy I liked being one. _

Another mental slap.

_The past is the past. Nothing like the present, and most probably nothing like the future. If you learned your lesson, then it will never happen again. If you decided to be ignorant, then everything will keep happening to you over and over again. It's really a common lesson, but nevertheless an important one… _

Itachi's lectures are killing me.

"What about my younger brother?" It took forever to answer my question, but that always happens in a conversation with Itachi. It might take him decades to answer your question, but eventually he will answer it. If he left a question unanswered, at the moment of his death he'll call you over and answer it, thus finishing his unfinished business.

But here's the catch. You expect him to do that. In the end, Itachi always does the unexpected. That's just one thing that I totally loathe about Itachi. Constant lies and incessant surprises. He never does anything straightforward.

Though now, I'm thinking that I only hated that about my brother because whatever he does seems like an offensive action towards me. I don't know if he doesn't know how my mind truly works or if he plainly hates me. Ever since I took the assignment of being a guy in drag for the school year, I've been seeing different sides of Itachi. A frustrated side, an angry side, a confused side…

Maybe, I never knew my brother at all.

Not a shock. I never even thought I knew him.

And as you can see, my thoughts, too, aren't getting anywhere, either.

Time to continue the conversation. "I just…you brought him up a long time ago. I just wanted to know more about him. I never had siblings, so…" You might be saying that I fail at acting natural. It's true. I'm no actor. I'm an idiot who can't keep his (or in this case, her) mouth shut.

Itachi, for once, kept the conversation going without having to place at least a thirty second gap between each question. I actually think that he might be getting into this conversation (and that he forgot our small argument in the beginning of our incarceration in this cramped closet). "Well, I haven't seen him in…God, I think it was about five years already. I'm not sure what he thinks of me anymore."

"Why haven't you seen him in five years? Ah…Sorry if I'm invading." I quickly added in. Call me a chicken or a fool but if I keep asking him about this he'll get suspicious.

"It's fine…But you probably don't want to hear it."

_Yes!_

I can't help it.

"We need something to pass the time." Stay calm, Sasuke. If you screw this up, my entire life will end here and now. Maybe that was a bit too strong, but still…

"I really don't know if I should. It's sort of…You really don't want to hear it."

"You never learn, now do you? The more you say that, the more I want to know! Spill!" A grin spread itself across my face. I don't fail at acting like a girl who likes to pry every once and a while. I do have to ask, who doesn't like to pry?

You might say no, but in your head you're thinking, _Yessss! I love to pry! Prying is the absolute most fun thing in the universe, because it gets you involved in other people's private lives!_

That statement was somewhat decent. I never know anything as shallow as that could be possible. Huh.

Itachi sighed. "I sort of ran away from home. I stay at Kakashi-san's when we're out of school…And…Yeah, that's basically it."

"And? You stopped saying something. Be a man, spill it!"

And I'll say that to myself.

Be a man in drag!

"It's really nothing! I-"

"Spi- Ahh!" That's right. I fell. On top of him. The worst thing that an uke can do, especially, in a baggy t-shirt and short shorts. Thank the lord that the doors didn't open, because people would have definitely gotten the wrong idea. "Ow…Sorry. Ow!"

Stupid ankle. It hadn't broken or twisted in a complete dangerous way, it just twisted in a way that would leave me immobile for a short time. A short time is enough time for a seme like Itachi to make a move. Then again, Itachi really didn't seem like he was in a mood to even make a move.

Really, don't ask me (or him) what was going on, because all of my thoughts at the time were – in a way – incoherent.

"Itachi-? You're such an idiot, help me up!" You could say my masculine side kicked for a split second. If you were in a situation like this, you'd lose all thoughts of trying to act like the opposite gender. Seriously.

I glared at Itachi when he gave me no response. He just sat there, in our awkward position, staring at me. Watching me struggle. I could've sworn a small smile, one of those rare ones, wound its way across its face, but lost its way through life and died.

"What are you doing, staring out into no where?" I demanded. I tried to get up but my ankle twisted in that uncomfortable and painful way again.

"…You remind me of him."

_Shit. _

"Of who?"

"Of my younger brother."

_Double shit._

"Are you saying that I'm like a boy?"

"No, your face is sort of similar and your attitude is…a lot like his."

_Please don't find out._

"Then you are saying that I'm like a boy! Geez!"

"…No, I'm saying that sometimes he's like a girl."

_I am?! I kill you!!!!!_

"Oh. Really? Uh…Okay, can you please…my ankle is sort of…"

He didn't listen to my last word.

Something about that moment made me think of how stupid I am. If the past is the past, nothing like the present or future, unless you're ignorant of the mistakes that you've committed, then I'm ignorant. Things never seem to change for me, even if I try. Maybe ignorance is my middle name.

But, alas, ignorance is bliss.

At this moment, you can call me bliss, too.

Because Itachi decided to do the unexpected again.

* * *

GAH! Sorry for the long wait again!!!

I can't help it. I love making Itachi question people's purity...

THE MANGA IS FREAKING ME OUT! Sorry non-manga readers for me spewing out some small spoiler (and the spoiler is, is that it's freaky!), but it's seriously affecting my writing again. Oh, well, I'll write for my pleasure and for your pleasure, so I hope you liked this chapter.

But this series is almost over! Yeah, it's not 15 chapters like my previous one, but it's sort of like a small break for me. As I said before, I'm sticking to the idea of a sequel for From Anonymous, so if you haven't read that yet, please read it!

I'm advertising myself too much. Geez.

Scroll to Review and click the Go!


	8. Couple of the Year or Enemies for Life

Gaah! Thank you all for your supportive reviews of that Naruto Manga Chapter. Seriously, that downed my mood a lot (I was lucky that the chapter was nearly finished by the time the manga came out)… My goal is to get more of a chapter done before the manga comes out, because after that I can't bring myself to write for another 24 hours.

Enough of my inabilities, on with the story.

**Couple of the Year or Enemies for Life**

I swore that after Itachi left that he might've taken my virginity but he'll never conquer my life ever again. I swore that I would never feel the way I felt about him ever again. Everyday I used to wake up and think, _Itachi you are officially out of my life for another day! _It might have been cheesy, but it started to work.

But now, it's either my mental morning magic stopped working, or I'm just as bad as Itachi in keeping promises.

* * *

When I opened my eyes, it was still dark. It was like I was lying down on the pavement with no lights, cars, or the moon. My senses slowly came to me as I stared at the wall, which, after a while, I noticed to be covered with janitor's tools.

Then there were arms around me, and a chest that I was leaning on that was rising up and down, in a regular pace. Soon I felt someone's breath over the top of my head, following the pace of the heaving chest.

It all finally came back to me.

"Ah!" I whispered and screamed at the same time, resisting the urge to pull out of my sleeping brother's grip. His arms were too strong for me to wrench my way out, despite the fact he was asleep.

Wait, Itachi's _asleep? _

As you can see, never before have I seen my older brother sleep. He goes to sleep after me and wakes up before. He never really naps. Itachi's constantly active during the day, and during the night…I don't know, but him sleeping is a rare occurrence for me. Lucky I didn't wake him up.

I moved gradually, trying to crank my neck up to catch a glimpse of his sleeping face. It was a startling experience for me, because I (and everyone else) assumed that Itachi was a light sleeper, able to jump out at anyone who tries to waylay him. He seemed to always be that lone warrior type. But he didn't stir at all as I loosened his grip on me enough for me to get a clear view of his face.

I didn't expect a disturbed, full-of-nightmare snooze, but I didn't anticipate someone with the appearance of a serene, slumbering god. Actually, I don't know what I expected, just not…this. Itachi's face didn't speak of that usual tension and alertness that was written all over him when his eyes were wide open. The way his head tilted to the right instantaneously told me that he was, in fact, in a deep sleep. In a deep sleep because he's probably frequently in lack of sleep.

There was something so peaceful about it, that it made me wish (in a dark, forsaken corner of my dark, forsaken heart) that he would be mine for the rest of my life – mine to watch, mine to love, mine to…

_What am I thinking?_

I snapped out of it. We're in a janitor's closet, for Pete's sake! We're supposed to be enemies! We're supposed to be screaming and banging on the door, hoping someone could hear us and open the door to let us out of this living hell!

What am I doing, staring at my older brother and wishing despicable things?

"Okay, wake up!" I snapped, giving him a nice, hard, slap on his face. Itachi's eyes opened without delay when my hand made contact with his cheek, leaving a red spot in its place. The shocked look on my runaway brother's face was a sight to cherish. He actually looked like one of those stupid main character boys in anime who's surprised when he got slapped by any female. And Itachi looking like that is a really extraordinary thing.

"Huh?" Itachi's voice sounded so unlike himself. Well, he did wake up very unexpectedly, so I wouldn't blame him, but…I'm still too used to seeing a vigilant Itachi, a cool Itachi, and an analyzing Itachi. Not a shocked, provoked, or an act-before-you-think Itachi.

But perhaps that part of him only exists for the diminutive instant of when he wakes up in the morning. Yeah, that's it. He turned back to his normal self right when he straightened himself up again.

"What. Did. You. Do?" I demanded. I had no idea if this guy was slow in the mornings, so I used small words and small sentences. And yeah, I was sort of mad. Well, not sort of…Really mad.

Itachi sat there in silence. Huh. Maybe this guy is slow in the morning. Either that…or he doesn't want to acknowledge the fact that he kissed me last night without any explanation.

You still can't trust Itachi. His actions sometimes have everything to do with each other, or they're utterly unsystematic. You can't expect him to do anything, because he does the unexpected. You can't expect him to do the unexpected, because then he'll do something different. We've been through this a thousand times. And yet I can't get over it. The fact that he's so elusive is either totally alluring or ceaselessly annoying.

I also hate that he takes forever to continue the damn conversation. Those with short attention spans aren't going to get anywhere with in a chat with this guy.

"I kissed you," Itachi said in this matter-of-fact matter-of-factly way.

"Grrr!" That was the only come back that I could come up with? I'm lame. "You weren't supposed to do that, you bastard! I'm your – I mean, I don't…Uh, what I'm saying is…"

At that moment, I prayed that I would learn how to shut up. Shutting up is a good thing to know how to do, especially when you're a babbling fool who's standing in front of the most calm, composed, and absolutely hot person that you've ever seen. Humiliation is what we call it. Shutting up is a cure for humiliation. So, me, shut up.

Itachi smirked at my struggle to find the right words to express my feelings. To tell the truth, my feelings were expressed perfectly. A jumble of confusion, stupidity, regret, hesitation, and guys in drag.

Itachi took advantage of my helpless position and seized my chin, pulling my face dangerously close to his. Finally, I shut up. I could feel his breath against my cheek as his eyes seemed to survey my face. I tried to shift my legs into a stance that wouldn't jeopardize my secret, but when someone's hand has an absolutely firm grip on your chin, you will find it hard to move.

I tried to speak. Instead, a childish whimper (that we both found to be similar to the kind of whimpers that I would've made when I was still young) escaped from my lips. Itachi raised his eyebrow, his face expressing amusement.

"I-Itachi…Let me go." I mentally kicked/slapped/punched/maimed/murdered myself when I felt a blush creep itself across my cheeks. I had no support whatsoever now that I tried to shift my position. I might've stopped all chances of him finding out that I was a boy for now, but the risk was an even more awkward position. The only type of support that I could give myself was to clutch onto his chest. Clutching onto someone's chest is probably the most ukeish thing sometimes.

But it was either that or let my secret be blown because of my male problems.

"Hn…"

I think I was hallucinating because his face seemed to be getting closer and closer.

I expected him to do what he did. I seriously did.

Itachi's lips crashed into mine, causing the both of us to totally forget that we were still locked within the janitor's closet. I felt him turn me suddenly and push me against the wall, his lips not leaving mine. Itachi didn't wait for my response to this action – he pushed his tongue into my mouth in that familiar way that sent memories rushing through my head and caused all thoughts and ideas to become either completely perverted or absolutely incoherent.

_Oh, shit._

Itachi's a seventeen to eighteen year old, right? It's normal for boys at that age to be a little perverted (a _little?)_, right? It's at that age (or younger or older), when the _real _hormones start to kick in and the boys finally decide that they're going to do something about it and run off in the world to fuck some helpless girls/boys to temporarily put an end to the masculine problems.

_(Those facts are all true. Admit it, fools!)_

I felt Itachi's hand resting on my upper thigh. The feeling of his hand there didn't show itself until it started moving up, to the most restricted place on my body. It's restricted for two reasons. A – It's truly private property and you haven't earned the right yet. B – I'm supposed to be a girl! I'm not supposed to have that part of the body!

"N-no," I managed to moan out in the middle of one of the hottest lip-locks that I've ever been in. Itachi didn't seem to hear me. Typical, hormone crazed, probably sex-deprived fools.

The door behind me gave way, and swung outward. The door was my only means of foundation, and we both fell into an awkward position onto the hallway floors, his hand that was formerly on my thigh swiftly wrapped around my waist as the other hand tried to break the fall. Even he didn't expect the door to swing open, so trying to break the fall didn't exactly work. It made him look like a failed chivalrous man, but that kind if impression only lasts for as long as the movement lasts.

"…Kari-chan?"

Damn it. It was Sakura's voice. She was the only one who called me that, anyway.

I cranked my neck up and I saw Sakura looming above me, her hands covering her mouth in the gesture that expresses shock. Itachi, being the sensible man/teenager he was, immediately pushed himself off of me and helped me up before stepping smartly away. Sakura watched our every movement, though I swear; if you looked into her emerald eyes you could still see the image of Itachi and me in our embarrassing position on the tile floor.

"Uh…Sakura-chan, what're you…?"

"I looked for you this morning, and I couldn't find you anywhere, so I asked Mitarashi-sensei and she just kept yelling that you both didn't complete your job to clean up the gym; she forced me to give up my search for you so that I would clean up the remainder of the mess all the kids made in the gym, so in order to do that I had to go to the janitor's closet and when I opened the door you two fell out and…" Kyaa. Squee. Ohmigosh.

"…I'll finish the job," Itachi said. I opened my mouth to protest, because the last thing I wanted to do was to leave the job that I was assigned to do. Quitting isn't really my thing. Besides, hasn't Itachi ever heard that 'Chivalry is Dead'? He's too…gentleman-like sometimes. My brother gave me a look - which a normal girl wouldn't be able to decipher, but since I'm really his younger brother I understood it - that told me to leave it to him and enough damage has been caused to both of our reputations.

_Tch. It's your fault… _I simply nodded and dragged the squealing Sakura off.

* * *

I have no idea how, but Sakura grabbed my sleeve and dragged me off to my dorm room, forced me to open the door and locked it. A serious look was on her face. I raised an eyebrow, fidgeting under her severe gaze.

"Kari-chan…"

God, she looks like she's going into one of those concerned parent conversations.

"WHAT HAPPENED? OH. MY GOD. TELL ME ALL ABOUT IT!"

Then again, you can never count on Sakura to be serious about something like this, anyway. A small smile cracked on my face but disappeared as quickly as it appeared. I considered telling her, but then I figured that either way, word was going to spread.

"I'll tell you, just…try and keep it as quiet as possible, okay?"

As quiet as possible. Sakura's definition for as quiet as possible (especially for something like this) would be loud enough so that the everyone in the entire world could hear it like it was spoken to them by an person with a clear voice who is standing right next to them.

* * *

_Uchiha Itachi. Uhm….I have no idea?_

* * *

Monday, just the day after I told Sakura and everyone in the school seemed to know. By everyone, I mean everyone. The teachers started looking at me (some of the females had a tint of jealousy) oddly, girls crowded up in small cliques when I approached them, whispering to each other while eyeing me carefully, and guys just plain-out avoided me like I was some kid who was covered with cooties. The teenagers that I would originally place in the clichéd category 'popular' started talking to me. Naruto kept staring at me sadly, and Sakura, the only girl around who didn't whisper about me behind my back, would keep bringing up the subject about our romance affair in the janitor's closet. Heck, even the janitor knew. All I can hope for is that he cleaned up his freaking closet, like he's supposed to.

Itachi's reaction. Utterly quiet. He talked to me a lot more comfortably, and I have to admit, I did, too. You could say that we were hanging out together more often, and whenever anyone would see Itachi walk up to me and say, "Hey." some girls ignore my existence and drool over him and others would send me a glare of jealousy and mistrust and say to each other, "I knew that girl was bad news."

Such is the life of a high school girl/boy who's in love with his runaway older brother who just happens to be the heartthrob of the entire school.

Life is _so _unfair.

* * *

After more practices of Romeo and Juliet, we seemed to be getting the play down. Kakashi frequently reminded us of the numerous kisses that we have to share all throughout the play (which are, in fact, all real). More jealous death glares. More 'OHMIGOSH!-ing'! More of all the usual.

Itachi caught up with me as I left the theater by myself. Sakura was busy studying, and Naruto was going over one last scene with Kakashi as Tybalt until the theater was going to close up for the day. The hallway was generally empty, because everyone else was watching Tybalt's performance inside the theater.

"Hey." Itachi gave me a gentle kiss – just a short kiss – just because we were alone in the hall. I didn't protest. I was getting used to it, like I was getting used to it in the past. And maybe, just maybe, we can go back to the old times, like we were, with no secrets.

No secrets.

On to the scene at hand, though…

"Are you free tomorrow night?" Itachi asked me as we both made our way down the empty corridor. I nodded. "Alright then…Do you want to go out, then? The two of us."

_You mean a date? _I had scheduled a study session with Sakura and Naruto. We were both trying to get the idiot blonde's grades up.

But this was really an opportunity that I can't blow off.

"Yeah, I'll go with you." I shot him a smile and sped up the pace, basically leaving him in the hallway by himself.

* * *

_Uchiha Itachi. As Sakura would call it, "Hot Date?"_

* * *

Man, everything in my notebook is marked with the name Uchiha Itachi…

* * *

"Sakura, I can't help Naruto study for the test tomorrow," I said to Sakura when she ran up to me at the cafeteria during our 'dinner'. Our 'dinner' was steak. Steak. Sizzling steak (That really sounds funny, if you think about it).

"Huh? Why?" Sakura asked, sitting down next to me with her share of the lunch ladies' sizzling steak (I can't get over that…Sorry!).

"Uh…I have a date."

"Oh-My-God, with Itachi-senpai!?" Sakura whispered loudly. Ugh, how cliché of me to say that. I nodded slowly to her soft outburst. "Kari-chan, you are officially dubbed the luckiest girl in the world!! I can't believe it! YOU'RE REALLY GOING OUT WITH ITACHI-SENPAI?!"

As you can see, that last part was really loud. As you can imagine, everyone in the cafeteria turned their heads towards me. I could feel the jealous ice daggers that were the eyes of the female body aiming at me, ready to assassinate me at any moment now so that they could claim Itachi for themselves.

I really had no objections to dying or claiming Itachi for themselves at the moment, because Sakura's now thunderous outburst is one of the most embarrassing things that I've been through. My eyes speedily glanced at Itachi, who was shaking his head and resting his forehead on his slender hand. I heard Deidara say, "Awesome!" and Itachi muttering, "Shut up…"

"Sakura, you shut up." I growled, pulling her down. Yes, she stood up during her outburst.

That makes it all the worse.

We were allowed to get out of campus as long as someone over the age of eighteen was accompanying you. Itachi's over eighteen, so we were among the few that were lucky to be able to leave campus during our dates.

Did I mention Itachi has his own car? Did I mention Itachi has a lot of money for being a runaway boy attending an expensive boarding school? Did I mention Itachi still hasn't heard that chivalry's dead?

Itachi's plain-out odd to me.

* * *

It was really the most beautiful sight I have ever seen. I never knew that there was a place in the unusually normal Konoha that was like this. It A place just for us. A place that I never knew existed in the universe, even with all of the pictures and explanations in the textbooks. Like they always say, you have got to see it to believe it. Believing really feels good sometimes, doesn't it?

"So? Hate it or love it?"

I really hate the fact that Itachi always puts the word 'hate' in front of 'love' in every sentence that has the words 'hate' and 'love'. Why can't he straight-out say, 'love it or hate it'? It just seems depressing to me…

"The view is beautiful." That was all I could say. Somehow (I really don't know how, I was too busy talking to Itachi to notice my surroundings), we were on some plateau or mountain or some sort of up platform of land on a higher elevation. Somehow, I was up there with my runaway older brother. Somehow, I feel like I can touch the sky just because this moment seems to freaking real to comprehend any thought that tries to be rational or smart, because nothing about this seemed smart to me. Nothing about this seemed logical in any sense in the entire universe, including heaven and hell. Absolutely nothing.

I felt his warmth behind me, his arms around me, holding me tight, already telling me that he'll never, and ever let go. I wanted to believe him, (and didn't I say that believing feels good?) but I didn't want to let go of my pride at the time. I'm angry at myself for that. I could have let my secret out right then and then, and not have to worry about getting yelled at for lying.

For lying about who I really am. For lying about the oh so serious fact that I'm the boy who he got so frustrated over that he had the fucking feeling to go ahead and rape the boy's mind out and cause him to never believe in anything and everything again…

"I never showed anyone this place before." His voice was already begging me to trust him. I wanted to slap it away, but something was pulling me back. It was either his strong arms or my tendency to mix up my life with a fairy tale.

But I know now. For some reason, this struck me right then and there. Haven't you heard that all fairy tales have some sort of secret behind it all? A missing story, a missing part…usually a tragedy?

Maybe my life is a fairy tale.

Maybe I'm just being stupid.

* * *

_Sasuke, I know you hate me for this. You're probably cursing in your head, wishing that I was gone forever. Maybe, just maybe, I truly am. _

_I wanted to make your life faultless – the kind of life I wished to live, the kind of life that I knew you wished to live. I wanted you to be everything that I'm not – an imperfect ideal being…But now I know that I'm selfish. It's my entire fault. I destroyed the innocence you had, and right now, I am begging you to forget about it. Forget about it and rebuild your life, without someone like me to cause it ruin like I always do. _

_I sound like I'm wallowing in self-pity. Maybe I am. Maybe I'm not. _

_But…really. I think that we both know that I just want what's best for you-_

* * *

"I never even showed this place to my family."

I looked down upon Konoha. I could make out the campus and some noises that reminded me of Naruto and Sakura's screaming. Sakura was probably having a fit about Naruto's inability to memorize anything. Okay, so maybe we weren't up so high after all, but it's a pretty thrilling sight if you're there during sunset.

"You're special…"

"Me? Special?" I wanted to laugh. I felt him nod.

A danger alarm suddenly went off in my mind, screeching, _RED ALERT!_

It was a red alert.

His arms that were wrapped tightly around me went up to another restricted area. My chest. My masculine chest where there's supposed to be something feminine. Something that girls should have. Something that guys, like me, aren't supposed to have.

Itachi flinched and stepped away from me. I trembled slightly, really hoping he wouldn't throw me off the cliff. Itachi's smarter than that. He is. But I'm his younger brother, so there's a possible exception.

Itachi stared at me with piercing eyes, studying me carefully. I knew not to move, or else he really might throw me off of this…plateau/cliff/mountain/hill/higher elevated land.

"Wait a second…" I heard him mutter under his breath. He approached me and ruffled up my hair, in a fashion that caused it to spike up dangerously to its original form, showing everyone in the world, _Hey, I'm not really a guy!!!_

Itachi's eyes widened as he ran his hand through his hair, blinking once just to check if it wasn't a dream.

"Sasuke? Oh, shit!"

* * *

Gaah. Yet again! Hey, I finished faster than expected. Before the dreadful day the manga would come out and cause me to get writer's block for an entire day. Grrr. Evil manga. I'm not supposed to say that, but…Yeah.

It's shorter than I expected, but oh well. Pretty revealing chapter. NEXT ONE MAY BE THE LAST!!!! Still not sure. Most probably. But, hey, after this, I'm starting the sequel to From Anonymous afterwards, as soon as possible (which might take a while. I'm not so good at beginnings).

People, if you're going to story alert it and favorite this story and stuff, please review! It makes me feel a lot better about myself!!!


	9. You Are Here

Wow, guys, thanks for the support! I thought my writing style absolutely sucked. Such is life of a lowlife such as I. Bleh.

You guys have to remember that paragraph in italics that I put in the last chapter. There was a sentence that was cut off that's in this chapter, just for you to know…

Hm. Maybe I shouldn't have made Itachi curse at the end of the last chapter (and maybe he's immature, but…but…), but…I couldn't help it. The new girl that you fell in love with happens to be the younger brother you fell in love with and swore you…I should shut up.

LAST CHAPTER! HOPE YOU ENJOYED IT ALL! Or is it???

**You Are Here: The Beginning of the End and the End of the Beginning**

The books that I hate the most are the romance stories. The books that I like the most are the ones with stuff that Itachi used to talk about – human values and stuff like that.

The movies I hate the most are the ones that have 'LOVE' written all over it. The movies that I like the most are the ones that cause the girls in the theater to scream and cause all of us to be scared of knives for the next twenty-four hours.

The music I hate the most are the ones that keep talking about a perfect relationship. The music I like the most are the ones that actually tell the truth about real life, real relationships and real dilemmas.

The people I hate the most are those who use my own feelings against me. The people I love the most are those who can't make up their mind about me at all, those who love me, those who hate me, those who don't think anything about me, and those who believe that I am their everything at the same time.

Huh. I wonder who that could be.

* * *

"Sasuke, is that…seriously you? What the hell do you think you're doing here?" I knew he was thinking, _in a girl's outfit, no less!_

I shook my head in a small movement so that Itachi couldn't see it. This wasn't the time to be thinking about stupid things that may be going through my older brother's obscure mind. This wasn't the time to joke around. This was a time to think of an excuse to get out of this predicament and run free to the laid-back life I wish I had.

There was a few options that I could've taken. A – Tell the truth and hope he'll accept it. B – Lie and probably be forced to tell the truth sooner or later, anyway. C – Push him off the cliff and hope that he lives but gets amnesia. D – Bring him to a lab full of scientists and somehow bribe them into making him get amnesia. E – Bring him to Tsunade and hope she'll have some sort of back up explanation before I screw anything up. F – Kill him.

A, B, E, C, and F were serious thoughts. D was just placed randomly in my head when I thought of how hilarious the situation was. I mean…It's just that…It's funny, in a way. It really is. Don't ask me how my mind works.

And yes, F was a serious thought. But there's a reason why I put that thought on the letter F. If you don't get me, then I'll ask. Have you taken a test recently? Have you failed the test? Get it now?

While I was busy debating, Itachi was muttering things under his breath and probably debating in his head, too. I began the process of elimination. F was out of the question. The last thing I wanted was to be accused of murder. C was too risky; I could still be accused of murder. D is definitely not going to happen, for two reasons. One, I don't know any lab full of scientists, and two, they wouldn't respond to a teenager's plea anyway. B was crossed out because I'll be forced to do A, anyway, because I don't believe anyone has hair like mine _(except for Haseo .hack//Roots…)._

That leaves me with A and E. Tsunade would understand that I blew it, especially with the fact that he's my freaking older brother. But there's the 50/50 that she really did get some sort of an excuse made up for me. Tsunade most likely forgot that I was even really a boy with all the stuff that's happened throughout the school year. If she didn't have a backup plan, maybe she'd do the reasonable thing and force me to do A.

I sighed. A it is.

"Aniki, I had no idea that you went to this school. I'm acting and dressing like a girl because it's this assignment Tsunade gave me before the school year…"

Itachi stared at me oddly. It was obvious he was frustrated. I had a small idea why, but…

* * *

_even though I might not know what exactly it is. _

_You're very welcome to hate me – I won't run away from that fact. And you can proudly say to everyone else in the world that you never really had an older brother because, I have to admit, I've never really did treat you as an older brother._

* * *

I don't think he ever wanted to see me again. The fact upset me, and it still does now. He did look more relaxed before I came into his life, before I gave him that slap that started it all. Itachi seemed different – more open, now touchable, even just a little more than what I thought was his limit.

Wounds have to heal eventually, even if it takes your entire lifetime. Everyone inflicts injuries, and everyone receives the impact. People claim that time can heal everything, no matter how slow the process – people claim that there are some things that time cannot heal. The things that time can't heal are probably broken hearts, death, and abuse in any way. They haunt you, until you die, or until someone comes along and heals them for you. The belief that time cannot heal everything isn't necessarily true. The wounds of the past that were inflicted upon you may not heal completely. Time can leave a scar in place of the wound, causing you to not feel the full wrath of the pain, but causing you to remember it whenever you look at it.

To me, before I came back into Itachi's life, he was like a wounded raven who was trying its best to learn how to fly again.

My thoughts aren't logical at all, are they?

"Just when I thought…" Itachi shook his head and turned away from me. I couldn't hear the end of the sentence, but I knew what it was. I ran my fingers through the now spiked up hair, in a weak attempt to push it back down.

"If you don't like it, then don't bother with it. Just…don't tell anyone else. I am going to tell the entire school at the end of the year, so will you keep your mouth shut? Only Uzumaki and Inuzuka know, and now you do." I really wished that I could learn to shut up.

Itachi simply nodded. He had his eyes closed. I think he got over it at that moment. We both got into the car and he drove us both back to the school. Itachi remained quiet the entire trip back, avoiding my gaze and avoiding my mental questions. He turned the radio up, loud, so that if I spoke, he probably wouldn't have to hear me and he would have an excuse to not listen and not to answer.

* * *

_Uchiha Itachi. GRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR!_

* * *

"Kari-chan! How'd it go!?" That's what I'd expect from a gossip girl like Sakura. She gave my hand a tight squeeze when she walked up to me. Her emerald eyes started glimmering with this _TELL ME OR ELSE _aura to it. "You have got to tell me _everything."_

No way in hell or heaven was that going to happen.

"Sakura, please be quiet, okay?" I said, my tolerance for every single living being growing thin. I pushed her gently away from me and began my trek to the classrooms, hoping that she got the message that the date didn't go too well, and that I definitely do not want to talk about it.

Sakura got the message. Half of it, at least, because she still begged me to tell her what happened to make the date go wrong. I already decided not to tell her a single thing, because she's the sort of girl that would spy on her best friend or sibling's date so that it would go well or worse.

"Fine. If you won't tell me, maybe Itachi-senpai will!" Sakura pouted before running off, to the senior's hall.

No, she wouldn't. No, Itachi wouldn't. No, no, Nononononoooo……

* * *

_Please tell me that my secret is secure?_

* * *

One of my most treasured moments of the day is now my most dreaded moments of the day. Drama. As in Romeo and Juliet. As in, romance. As in, romance of the people who's relationship is absolutely not romance. 

Itachi can't back down as Romeo, now. I can't back down as Juliet, either. Do you know how much that sucks?

When I walked in, Sakura ran back over to me, her usual peppiness and gossipiness (if that's a word, which I don't think it is…) still radiating around her. A wave or relief reached me, because – Thank God – my secret wasn't blown by Itachi. "Kari-chan, why? Itachi wouldn't tell me what happened on the date, either! It's no fair!!!!" She gave me a childish pout and crossed her arms.

Naruto and Kiba floated over, apparently interested in the topic of the current conversation that just so happened to float to their ears. "Yeah, what happened? Everyone in the school's interested, basically because…you two both won't talk about it and it sounded like you both had a horrible time," Kiba said.

"Well, duh," Sakura pouted again.

"Come on, we're your best friends!" Naruto insisted with that mischievous smile. "I swear, we won't tell anyone!" The mischievous smile gave me no comfort in the matter. I shook my head, pulling away from Sakura's stomping feet and flailing arms.

"Why?" Sakura demanded.

"Because…I don't want to tell you. Now leave me alone." I marched off, not looking back. Those 'friends' were getting on my nerves.

Ino and her posse stopped in front of me. They were all smiles, laughter, and what they would call, 'glorious glee because the hottest guy in school and his does-not-deserve-him girlfriend broke up after just one date'. "Hey, Hikari," Ino smirked at me coolly.

"What's up, bitch?" I shot the smirk back at her, stopping in my tracks and crossing my arms. Ino stopped walking and her followers halted, too. "What're you so happy about, huh?" Stupid question, but it doesn't hurt to ask.

"Because. You and Itachi-senpai broke up, and he's free and going to be all mine," Ino replied, her smirk remaining on her pale face. She was wallowing in her conceit. She was wallowing in a false truth.

"Sure, we might've broken up, but that doesn't mean you're going to get him, now does it?" I eyed her long hair, and then spoke the truth. "Itachi likes shorter hair. Buh-bye, now."

Ino sent me ice daggers of death as she signaled the clique to start moving. Their footsteps were completely in-sync. Does she seriously work these poor, helpless girls so that they walk in the same speed as her? Ah, well, the matter doesn't concern me right now.

But my statement was completely true. Itachi likes shorter hair. He said that to me, once, when I actually brought the guts up to talk to him about girls. That was a few days before he sort of…initiated the relationship.

I asked if he liked girls. He shrugged and said that he didn't like girls in general, only certain ones. I asked what kind of girls he liked. He answered that he wasn't completely sure. I randomly said that I liked long hair. He grinned at me and admitted that he preferred short hair.

The tête-à-tête told me something about myself. Maybe, unconsciously, I liked long hair because I liked Itachi. Maybe, consciously, Itachi liked short hair because he liked me. I'm not sure, though, because I have no idea how to read his mind like he does to me at times. I guess he knows me too much, but I don't know him at all.

I don't know him at all.

* * *

_Truthfully, Sasuke, I had no intention to do what I did to you. You are just…different. You seem so enticing to me, in such a way that I don't understand it myself, most probably because I am not meant to understand. _

_If you get what I just said, then you would be aware of the reason why I ran away from home. It's either I do not deserve to be in your innocent presence, or the self-pity that I am continuously drowning in. _

_If you don't understand, then…All you have to really know is that I'm sorry and…_

* * *

Time flows so quickly when you look back at things. Time flows so slowly when you are actually living the moments. It felt like just yesterday when this happened. It felt like just yesterday when that happened. Tomorrow, it would feel like just yesterday when I think about this. 

Itachi kept my secret down to the very end of the school year, and now he's graduating. I am really grateful, but that won't change the fact that he's avoiding me because of the secret.

_I'm your younger brother, so what? You love your younger brother, all of a sudden? So what? You had no problem with it before, so what's so wrong with it now? Is it that you're still guilty, or is it that you hate me now? The fact was unexpected, I understand that, but wouldn't you have gotten over the shock now? You have to adapt eventually…_

I pounded my head against the desk. The next few events were coming up soon – The Romeo and Juliet play, and the Senior Graduation festival thingy…

* * *

I had to settle this before the Senior Graduation, and, hopefully, I would be able to settle this during the play. 

"I. Am. So. Nervous." Sakura shivered in her nurse outfit, not out of the cold but out of the apprehension of getting up there in front of…probably 200 people, because our auditorium is that big. There were parents, students that didn't participate and were interested (most of the student body did participate, though), and a guy who's going to videotape us and put us on that boring channel with random stuff on it.

"Don't be," I tried to reassure her. I wasn't nervous about the play at all. I was nervous about one of the main characters in the play that I had to kiss for real that time in front of probably 200 people full of parents, students, and a guy that's going to put us on TV so that more people could see us (if people actually decide to watch us on that boring channel).

"I know, you're a lot more nervous than I am, but, still…What if I mess up and ruin the entire play?" Sakura whispered. She made the mistake of taking a secret peek between the curtains, squeaked, and turned back to me. "There are so many people out there! I am freaked. I am freaked. I am really freaked."

"God, will you shut up?" I said, gritting my teeth to stop them chattering from anxiety. Itachi emerged from the changing rooms, wearing that Romeo outfit that – I have to confess – looked completely heavenly on him. If you know what kind of costumes you have to wear for this play, it's going to be rare seeing someone that doesn't look pathetic.

Kakashi strode over to the cast that were bunched up backstage, in a silent commotion of panicky frenzies. "Okay, settle down, everyone. You'll all be fine; we've been practicing this since the beginning of the school year! Hikari and Itachi, come over here, I need to speak to you for a second."

Sakura lightly ushered me over to Kakashi and Itachi was dragged over there by Deidara. As you can still see, the last thing we wanted was to have a conversation that has to do with each other.

"Alright. Both of you, I went over what's going to happen for the little kiss scenes. And I have heard about your…insecurities about each other, but get over it, just this once!" Kakashi left right after that.

"He comes to talk to us privately and all we hear is that, huh?" I complained under my breath. Itachi didn't so much as glance at me as he left to where he was supposed to cue into the beginning scene, and I waited at the back for my cue to come.

* * *

The crowd was tense. It was basically Juliet's first appearance, but during that appearance comes the kiss. The kiss scene was the part everyone was looking forward for. The expectations varied from a romantic scene where we made up from out break up, or a fight in the middle of the play. 

The latter of the two is the one that I dreaded the most.

Another shocking thing – nothing happened. No romantic, telepathic scene happened between Itachi and me, but no fight erupted from the occurrence.

But that really sucked, you know? The kiss was the only thing I was looking forward to because that was my chance to make up with him, but Itachi is as good as an actor as ever. Perfect, as ever. Maybe my expectations were too high. Maybe Itachi really does despise the fact that I'm really his younger brother and all.

_Maybe I should let him go._

* * *

Pomp and Circumstance. One of the only classical songs that I know that could make people cry. Well, that and Pachelbel's Canon. 

Guess. What event is it? If you didn't think graduation then…never mind.

Yes, it's graduation. Yes, I failed at pulling him back. No, I haven't made my decision on what to do about the situation yet. No, he hasn't talked to me. Yes, I don't think he wants to. Yes, Itachi's probably the valedictorian. No, I haven't thought of a plan. No, I don't plan to crash the ceremony…

"Kari-chan! It's the graduation, don't you wanna watch?" Sakura asked, standing at my open doorway and watching me as I stared at the ceiling blankly. She cocked her head to the side when no answer came. "Come on, you've been like this since last week's play! What's on your mind! I'm your best friend, tell me!"

She made the assumption that she's my best friend. You know how weird that is? She's sort of my best friend, but Naruto is getting more comfortable around me mainly because I'm a guy. She'll probably be my 'best friend' after the graduation, if she could stand my true, guy self. And seeing how she deals with boys, I don't really think so. It's drooling, hating, or not acknowledging at all…

"Ka-ri-chan," Sakura yelled sternly shaking me awake from my trance and ramblings. I blinked and stared at her curiously, waiting for her to make her point. "Seriously, I'm worried about you!" She sighed and sat down against the wall, while giving me a serious look.

Okay. Here comes the guilt. Time to speak up and say something…

"I'm fine, don't worry." Yep. My attempt at trying to reassure her and you can already tell that I suck at consoling people. Mainly because…Maybe I'm the one who always needed the consoling in the past. Sakura still shot me an anxious look. Clearly, my reassuring isn't going too well. I spoke up a little more, saying, "Sakura, I've been really tired lately, that's all. I don't have that much energy to watch the graduation anyway, especially with…him…being there."

Sakura nodded slowly. "Of course, then…Are you sure, though? I'm not going to act like one of those squealing fan girls that you constantly accuse me of being anymore, but…let me just say this one thing." The cherry blossom girl stood up and started to make her way to the open doorway. "You both looked unquestionably _perfect _together."

I watched her as she made her way out the door, finally learning that someone with problems like me need to be alone every once and a while. I said a silent thank you in my mind, and brought my knees to my chest as I contemplated for the final time that day. It was either Itachi or no Itachi. Get your life back, or live your life in misery. Try, or regret not trying…

I relaxed my position and let my feet fall to the ground as I picked up the notebook that I've been absentmindedly scribbling my feelings in for the past few months. It was filled with mostly the name of Uchiha Itachi, and the comments that I wrote next to them either brought tears to my eyes or smiles to my face. The last few things I wrote were filled to the brim with the colorful and wonderful part of our language called cursing. I bit my lip and resisted the temptation to rip the notebook up, throw it into the trash can, and tell the garbage man to treat today's garbage with extra hate.

I flipped through the pages a little more, until the lines began to empty themselves out. Something from one of the pages slipped out and fell to the ground. It took me ten seconds to realize that it did what it did, and I placed the notebook down on the bedside table and picked up the piece of paper that lie inside of the envelope.

_Sasuke, I know you hate me for this. You're probably cursing in your head, wishing that I was gone forever. Maybe, just maybe, I truly am. _

_I wanted to make your life faultless – the kind of life I wished to live, the kind of life that I knew you wished to live. I wanted you to be everything that I'm not – an imperfect ideal being…But now I know that I'm selfish. It's my entire fault. I destroyed the innocence you had, and right now, I am begging you to forget about it. Forget about it and rebuild your life, without someone like me to cause it ruin like I always do. _

_I sound like I'm wallowing in self-pity. Maybe I am. Maybe I'm not. _

_But…really. I think that we both know that I just want what's best for you, even though I might not know what exactly it is. _

_You're very welcome to hate me – I won't run away from that fact. And you can proudly say to everyone else in the world that you never really had an older brother because, I have to admit, I've never really did treat you as an older brother._

_Truthfully, Sasuke, I had no intention to do what I did to you. You are just…different. You seem so enticing to me, in such a way that I don't understand it myself, most probably because I am not meant to understand. _

_If you get what I just said, then you would be aware of the reason why I ran away from home. _

_If you don't understand, then…All you have to really know is that I'm sorry and that I love you more than anything. So much…that right now I wish that I don't. Perhaps, through the years that we'll be apart, I won't feel the same way before. And you won't have to suffer because of my instabilities. _

_I hope you can enjoy everything else in your life, and that you can hopefully find those aspects of your innocence that I took away from you._

_Sorry._

I blinked at the letter, and remembered it from the back of my head. It was ripped in half, not by me, though. I found it in the garbage can after Itachi left. Apparently, he changed his mind about informing me of his feelings. I found it, taped it back together, read it, and kept it somewhere safe. And one day, the letter disappeared from my drawer, really not long after my brother left. And I forgot it, only remembering the hate that I held for him…

Then, how did it end up in my notebook?

A smile wound its way up my face. I bolted out the door, shutting it behind me and ignoring the stares of exhausted freshman.

* * *

The graduation ceremony took place in front of the school, on its well kept lawn. I stopped behind a bush and took a breather, hoping my fatigued and heavy breathing didn't bring any unwanted and unneeded attention. I heard clapping and some fan girl cries. Itachi was obviously doing something up there, probably giving a speech about being valedictorian and all. 

I peeked up and first thing I saw was the class of graduating seniors, with Sasori and Deidara sticking out of the crowd like a sore thumb. Deidara kept waving his hand around and saying randomly, Art Is A Bang! Sasori tried to shut him up and ended up resorting to violence like pinching, stepping on feet, and hard slaps on the back.

The second thing I saw was Itachi saying some words that I fail to remember to this day, about stuff like thank you to whoever and whatever and stuff. Tsunade stood up and announced that Itachi was going to be accepted into one of those colleges for amazing to-be adults with an amazing full scholarship.

At the end of the ceremony, the principal would say, "Congratulations, you all graduate from Konoha High School." And that would mark the end of my relationship with Itachi, and the next time I see him is only known by no one except for that ultimate being people call God.

My thoughts were racing too much in my head that I couldn't think any coherent thought at all. Itachi was about to say one last thing and my body just happened to move on its own. I emerged from the bushes and stomped up on the stage, sticking out even more than blonde Deidara and aggravated Sasori.

"Just wait a second," I muttered, grabbing Itachi's sleeve and dragging him off the stage. There were gasps that sounded like those from the movies. Tsunade's jaw probably touched the ground, as I pulled Itachi away from the crowd's eyes and ears.

"What do you think you're doing?" Itachi demanded, yanking himself away from my grip. I placed my hands on my hips and gave him a glare.

"You like me until you find out that I'm your younger brother. Explain," I said.

Itachi stayed silent. At least I made my point clear for him. Now, he had no intention to leave, because A) I wouldn't let him, and B) If he doesn't settle this, then I'll honestly haunt him for the rest of my life, and his, too.

"Explain! Or else you won't be able to leave to your fancy college."

"I'm doing what's best for you," Itachi spoke up, his voice stern and quiet.

"Yeah, what you think what's best for me!" I pulled out the letter that was in my pocket, waving it in front of his beautiful eyes that showed no emotion, knowing that he was shocked and apprehensive deep down inside. "You said yourself that you don't know what's best for me. Stop being so damn selfish and stop wallowing in your self pity! And you're conscious of that. If you know you're wrong, then why don't you fix it instead of leaving me to suffer and to clean up after your messes?"

"What the hell do you want me to do? You…you hated me when your head hit that pillow. You murmured it yourself, and that's when I realized I was wrong. I realized it when I was too late. How do you expect me to fix it, now?"

"You're not good at this sort of thing, are you?" There was no need to hide my real voice. There was no need to hide his frustration. "Fix it now by staying with me. Okay?"

There was no need for me to hide my desperate thoughts. I rested my face in his chest, letting a tear or two soak through his black graduation vestment. Itachi stood there, immobile, but he was shaking.

"The perfect man either cherishes or hates the day when they're accused of being wrong by someone else, no matter how many times he tells himself that it's imperfect," Itachi quietly said, calming down himself. "No one really trusts themselves. You need to hear things from other people's mouths in order for you to believe it. Even if you don't believe, some part of you will."

"The last thing you and I need are your lectures," I muttered, the tears stopping on the outside but possibly not on the inside. "Will you stay with me, now? No matter what?" I looked up at him, seeing him look down at me. His rare smile cracked through the impassable wall and was finally visible. Itachi gently placed his lips against mine, only to pull away quickly.

"I'll come back for you."

Not the answer I expected, but…good enough.

* * *

"Now concludes the end of this school year! Enjoy the vacation and I look forward to seeing you next year," Tsunade proudly announced two weeks later. Cheers erupted from everyone's mouth, and a smile was shown on everyone's face – especially the fatigued teachers. 

"Oh, and yes, Kyoku Hikari has an announcement to make," Tsunade added in before students began to file out of the gymnasium.

I shot Sakura a smile as she watched me, wide-eyed and confused.

"Well, it's my first year here, not only in this school, but with you all of you, too," I began. Try to act casual, because this is when it all ends. "But…I've been keeping a secret from all of you since the beginning of the year." I ruffled up my hair, in a fashion that caused it to spike up dangerously to its original form, showing everyone in the world, _Hey, I'm not really a girl!!! _"My name is really Uchiha Sasuke, and…I'm not really a girl."

* * *

Alright!!! 

Sorry for the lack of stuff on the play. All you need to know is...the play was a success, but not Sasuke's plan!!!

I decided there will be one short chapter after this, so…hold on tight, peoples!!! Love you all!! The next one will be up ASAP.

The manga…yeah. Freaking us out still.

Buh-bye, lovies!!! Hope you loved! Please click the go button and write something nice!!


	10. Homebound

Now, this is the REAL ending. It's almost like a mini epilogue…

ENJOY! THAT'S ALL I CAN SAY!

**Homebound**

_Haruno Sakura. Her jaw touched the ground, literally. She immediately ran up the stage and shook me like crazy, asking me if I was crazy. If I were a girl, I would tolerate it. I changed back to my real voice and told her that I wasn't, and…truthfully, you're annoying but trustworthy. I think she took it sort of hard, but she's fine. And I think she has a crush on me, now…_

_Uzumaki Naruto and Inuzuka Kiba already know, so…_

_Kakashi-sensei. He was all, "I KNEW IT! I KNEW IT! I KNEW IT!" In the end, Naruto and Kiba still got in trouble for not relaying the news for Kakashi back when he asked them to spy on me._

_Deidara. He just happened to drop by and was all surprised. He wasn't affected much._

_TenTen. Uh, she was pretty shocked, but she was a good sport about it. I think she relates to boys better than girls, because all she could blabber to me about at the end of the year was how awesome I was at basketball and that I being a boy should have been obvious to her since try outs._

_Yamanaka Ino. Oh, she was worse than Sakura. When I joined in on the small party we had, I changed into clothes that I want to wear, clothes that were made for men, she was shocked and drooling secretly…I do not want to be anything above friends with her. To be honest, I don't want to even be friends with that bitch!_

_Rock Lee. The only boy that took it a bit hard. For the rest of the day, he was like, "I had a crush on a guy…I had a crush on a guy…I had a crush on a guy…" Like being gay was a bad thing. Uhm. I should shut up._

_Gai-sensei. I regret this, now, because the only reaction that he had was the fact that he wanted to dress up as a girl for an entire year. Dude, it wouldn't be as convincing as my act. It would be awkward._

_Temari. I think she was embarrassed because she kept rambling on to me about how men were useless and all. Now that she knows that I'm a boy, and that I know she hates men more than anything, she's probably going to think that I hate her. She's a pretty nice, girl when it comes down to it. Just doesn't like us boys._

* * *

I sit down at the apartment table while drumming my fingers on the wooden surface. It is five years since the freshman year of high school at Konoha Boarding School. Itachi has been at college for five years, claiming before he left that he really would come back for me.

Remind me never to trust people like him ever again.

I gave up my big mansion, because it was literally empty with only me around. Now, I live solely on three part-time jobs. I don't plan to go to college, mainly because I have no idea what courses to take. Naruto and Sakura and the others come by every once and a while, but things are typically quiet.

Quiet life. Truthfully, with no doubt at all, I enjoy it.

There is a knock on the door. I stand up and run my hand through my raven locks, trying to at least look a bit presentable. I open it without bothering to see who it is, because I expect Sakura or Naruto standing at the door, possibly with some snacks and a movie to watch because they have nothing better to do with their lives.

Instead, a tall man stands there, his feminine eyes staring down at me, his black, long hair framing his slender and pale face, and his back up straight, as if he were a noble.

A smile reaches my own face as he smiles back at me, gathering me up rather playfully in his arms. He places a kiss on my lips, and pulls away quickly so that he can study how much I have grown, as well. He hugs me again, and I feel something soak through my shirt on my shoulder. The feeling disappears swiftly, as I whisper,

"You're back."

* * *

The happy and peppy story ends in the exact opposite way the rest of the story went on with. Aw, well. Its fun to write like this every once and a while and I found it slightly sweet, though my tastes are…weird.

Hope you enjoyed the entire story!!! Love you guys! Get ready for a sequel to From Anonymous as soon as I get over the 'Yay! Another successful fanfiction done!' phase!

Your weird and random writer,

KoneKo


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